She was absolutely flabbergasted, but I had touched her pride.
"I apologize if I have seemed rude," she said at last. "I—suppose you have the right really—only—" And her whole slender body quivered with a wave of rebellion.
"Let us say no more about the matter, but go into lunch, only you will find that I am not such a weakling, as you no doubt supposed you would have to deal with." I hobbled up from my chair, Burton discreetly not having entered the room. Alathea gave me my crutch, and we went in to the dining-room.
While the servants were in there I led the conversation upon the war news, and ordinary subjects, and she played the game, but when we were alone with the coffee, I filled her glass with Benedictine, which she had refused when Burton handed the liqueurs. She had taken no wine at all.
"Now drink whatever toast you like," I told her. "I am going to drink one to the time when you don't hate me so much and we can have a little quiet friendship and peace."
She sipped her glass, and her eyes became inscrutable. What she was thinking of I do not know.
I find myself watching those eyes all the time. Every reflection passes through them, they are as expressive of all shades of emotion as the eyes of a cat, though the beautiful Madonna tenderness I have never seen again since the day when she held the child in her arms, and I was rude to her.
When we went back into the salon I knew that I was passionately in love with her. Her restiveness is absolutely alluring, and excites all my hunting instinct. She looks quite lovely, and the subtle magnetism which drew me the first days, even when she appeared poor and shabby, and red of hand, is stronger than ever—I felt that I wanted to crush her in my arms and devour her, the blood thumped in my temples, I had to use every atom of my will with myself, and lay back in my chair and closed my eye.
She went straight to the piano and began to play. It seemed as though she were talking, telling me of the passion in her soul. She played weird Russian dances and crashed agonizing chords, then she played laments, and finally a soft and soothing thing of McDowell's, and every note had found an echo in me, and I had followed, it almost seemed, all her pain.
"You play divinely, child," I said, when she had finished. "I am going to rest now, will you give me some tea later on?"