“Leave New Orleans!” she repeated in surprise. “But I thought you intended staying here. Why have you changed your mind?”
Did he detect a subtle accent of regret in her voice? A deep flush mounted to his brow. He bent over her suddenly, eagerly.
“Would it matter––if I went?”
She drew back at the abruptness of his words.
“How unfair to answer one question with another!” she said lightly.
A pause fell between them. Perhaps she, too, felt the sudden repulse of her own answer and the ensuing constraint. Perhaps some compunction moved her to add in a voice not entirely steady:
“And so you think––of going back to France?”
“To France!” he repeated, quickly. “No”––and stopped.
Looking up, a half-questioning light in her eyes took flight to his, until suddenly arrested by the hard, set expression of his features. Abruptly chilled by she knew not what, her lashes fell. The horses champed their bits and tugged at the reins, impatient of the prolonged pause.