263“And never return, never to Mexico?”
“Never!”
Frankly, then, she placed her hands in his.
That moment Driscoll turned the corner of the hedge, and was before them. He fell back, and reddened as though himself caught in wrongdoing. It was strange how he noted, at such a time, that she was clothed in light blue, in the very dress he had given her. But no, he perceived at once that it was of some delicate silk from Japan. Yet the pattern was so nearly the same. She must have selected it–she had selected it!–with him in mind. And now, against a girl’s love so quaintly, shyly revealed, to behold this contrast, her hands there, wantonly surrendered!
Instantly she tore herself free and confronted him.
“Oh, why, why,” she cried fiercely, “did you not let them kill you?”
Suddenly her hands flew up to her hot face. “Then,” she moaned, “then you would not have lived to see!”
The Emperor stepped between them. Tall, severe, he was cold in anger.
“It’s the intrusion of a rowdy, mademoiselle.” To Driscoll he said, “Now, go!”
Utterly confused, the trooper turned to obey. But at the first step he swung round, looking as he had never looked in the bloodiest of cavalry charges.