“Are you going to sing Gilbert’s praises to me?”
“—Generously and fully. You have been boys together—we cannot do this. It is like stabbing him in the back. O Louis, dear Louis, you know I would come with you if I could—you do not think it is easy for me either, do you, Louis? . . . You know that I love you with all my heart . . . but I can’t do it. . . . Mary Mother! help me—help him!” Her eyes closed; her hands, imprisoned as she was, joined themselves. And for the second time the young man, now nearly as white as she, let her go.
“I want no saints between us, Lucienne,” he said, very low. “You are saint enough for me. . . . And you have no need to invoke angelic protection against me; you have had it, I think, these many months . . . else you would have known before to-day what I never meant to tell you even now, God knows!”
The sudden agony in his voice showed the girl that the day was not yet lost. Still there was time for the anguish of victory. But was it not for defeat that her soul cried out? . . . Not till now did she realise that under this strife of the heart there lay a jewelled picture in her mind—the little chapel at the Recollets, the decked altar, the priest bending over two figures that knelt there side by side. It flashed up now, warm and brilliant, flashed and faded as she turned away, falteringly crossed the room, and sank down on the brocaded cushions of the couch.
Her lover looked up and slowly followed her out of the firelight. “Is this to be the end of the dream, then?” he asked huskily.
She whispered “Yes” almost inaudibly, and catching at his hand carried it to her lips. He pulled it instantly away, and the lace at his wrist, catching on a bracelet, tore. “Don’t do that!” he exclaimed, “if you want this to be the end. . . . My God, how can it!”
She only said, with a little gasp: “Your ruffle is torn. I am sorry . . .”
And he stood staring at her, as, white as a lily, she sat there propped by the cushions, her hands idle and open on her lap, and seemed scarcely to see him. Then he turned away without a word and went slowly to the fireplace.
The girl sat looking with anguished eyes at the figure thrown up dark against the firelight, and the bent brown head over which showed on the marble the carved lilies of France. There was nothing dramatic in his attitude; he seemed to be examining his torn lace . . . a long time.
Suddenly all the Amorini grew grave, crowded together, and looked down from their coigns in alarm. The young man had turned away from the hearth. His face was very drawn; his eyes, that they and she had always known so gay and kind, were steel-bright and hopeless. He came straight across the room and dropped on his knees beside the girl.