She paused, not seeming in the least disturbed, however. She would have cut off her right hand, almost, before she would have exhibited an emotion.
“I had a reason of my own for coming here,” he went on, “apart from Miss Clarissa’s commands. I want to bid you good-by.”
“You must be going,” she commented, “very early in the morning.” And yet her heart was beating like a trip-hammer.
“It is not that,” was his reply, “though I am going early. I had a whim—you remember my whim about the song—a fancy that I should like to say my good-by here, where I said a good-by once before.”
“It is easily said,” answered Lisbeth, and held out one of her hands. “Good-by.”
He took it, with a pretense at a coolness as masterly as her own, but he could not keep it up. He gave way to some swift, passionate, inexplicable prompting, and in an instant had covered it with kisses, had even fiercely kissed her slender wrist.
She snatched it from his grasp, breathless with anger, forgetting her resolve to control herself.
“What do you mean?” she cried. “You are mad. How dare you?”
He drew back a step, confronting her defiantly.
“I do not know what I mean,” he answered, “unless, as you say, I am mad. I think I am mad; so, being a madman, I will not ask you to pardon me. It was a farewell. It is over now, however. Will you let me take your roses, and carry them to the house?”