“Out of here,” ordered Jacqueline. “I am going to call the servants.” She had no sympathy for his wistful, forlorn gazing.
“It’s the end, the end of my idyl,” he murmured.
“Are you going?”
He came nearer instead, and looked in profound melancholy at the girl. The ruby flush was no longer there, and the face was olive and waxen. The lips were parted, baring teeth that were marvelously white. The shawl had fallen to the floor, and an ivory cross on a chain about her neck caught his eye. He turned it over in his hand, and on the gold, where the chain was attached, he saw an inscription.
“María de la Luz,” he read. “So, that is her name. But I never asked it. Identity would have blighted the idyl.”
“Sire,” Jacqueline protested angrily, “this poor child needs help. I shall––”
148“One moment, mademoiselle, I wish to say that I still do not know who she is.”
Then, with a last sorrowful look, he turned back to his apartment of state.
Jacqueline’s lip curled as she watched him go.
“And you wish me to find out who she is?” she apostrophized his back. “But I shall not tell you. And she–no, she is not the kind that would, knowing who you are.”