My heart still continued to beat in a quick, tiresome manner.
"You look changed, Comtesse," Sir Antony said. "Your little face is pale. Do you remember the night we danced together? It was round and rosy then. Is it a hundred years ago?"
There is a something in his voice which is alluring. The mocking sound goes out of it now and then, and when it does one feels as if one must listen. Oh, but listen with both one's ears!
"Yes, it is a hundred years ago," I said.
"I was so sorry to hear of your grandmother's death," he continued. "I wanted to tell you how I felt for you, but I was away in Norway, and have only just returned. Did you think I was unkind?"
"No, I never thought at all. Grandmamma was glad to die. I knew she could not live, but it came suddenly at the end."
"What a splendid personality! How I wish I had seen more of her! I generally manage to seize the occasion, but fate kept you and her beyond my reach. Why did we not all meet this time last year?"
"Oh, do not talk of that!" I cried. I felt I could not bear to hear any more. "I am trying to forget, and to find life full of compensations. Grandmamma and the Marquis promised me that I should."
He looked at me, stopped in the path, and bent down to a level with my face. His eyes seemed as if they could see right through my mind then, as on another occasion in our lives.
"Dear little white Comtesse!" he said. Almost the same words.