“She, also, left Paris. Whether she let her love conquer her pride and joined him, or whether she went elsewhere—also alone, no one knows but St. John, and he does not encourage questions.”
“I hope,” said the girl slowly, “she went back, and made him love her.”
Hervé caught the melting sympathy in Duska’s eyes, and his own were responsive.
“If she did,” he said with conviction, “it must have made the master happy. He gave her what he could. He did not withhold his heart from stint, but because it was so written.” He paused, then in a lighter voice went on:
“And, speaking of Marston, one finds it impossible to refrain from reciting an extraordinary adventure that has just befallen his first disciple, Mr. Saxon, who is a countryman of yours.”
The girl’s eyes came suddenly away from the sea to the face of the speaker, as he continued:
“I happened to be on the streets, when wiser folk were in their homes, just after the battle in Puerto Frio. I found Mr. Robert Saxon—perhaps the second landscape painter in the world—lying wounded on a pavement among dead revolutionists, and I helped to carry him to an insurrecto haunt. He was smuggled unconscious on a ship sailing for some point in my own land—Havre, I think. Allons! Life plays pranks with men that make the fairy tales seem feeble!”
Steele had been so astounded that he had found no opportunity to stop the Frenchman. Now, as he made a sign, M. Hervé looked at the girl. She was sitting quite rigid in her steamer chair, and her lips were white. Her eyes were on his own, and were entirely steady.
“Will you tell us the whole story, M. Hervé?” she asked.
“Mon dieu! I have been indiscreet. I have made a faux pas!”