He caught her hand, held it tightly an instant, bent over it as though he were about to raise it to his lips, then dropped it as if it had burned him. 'Adieu,' he said, 'I know that in England the hand-shake means forgivenness, and that once more I am forgiven—for speaking the truth—and that I may see you again.'
Clare did not gainsay it, and he left the room.
Count Litvinoff was marching back to Thornsett with a very elate step, and a good deal of military swagger, and Clare had resumed her thinking—she was thinking of him, and he was thinking of her. He thought aloud, as usual.
'H'm,' he said to the grey stone walls on each side of him, and to the plovers who were wheeling and screaming overhead, 'la belle was offended, but not so much. When she thinks over it she will say,—"He is not a good patriot and friend of liberty, this Litvinoff, for he forgets his mistress, La Révolution; therefore he is unfaithful." Ay, but she will add, "He only forgets her when I am near, and he is only unfaithful for me," C'est bien—c'est bien—c'est très bien!' he added, vaulting a gate and making a short cut home.
FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.
OING out again, John?' spoke Mrs Hatfield, a little plaintively, as her husband rose and took down his hat from its peg, ten days after Thornsett Mill had been closed. Not closed for a day on account of a wedding, as had once been suggested, but closed, it might be for ten years, or practically for ever.