“I was weak enough to keep the story from you in the first place––a foolish reticence, for these matters follow a man to the ends of the world.”
“Oh,” she said, “to think it was I who made you feel this!”
He took her hand; his grasp hurt her fingers; yet she did not shrink.
“You showed me a new world,” he answered, quickly. “Not the world I expected to find––where life would hold little of joy or zest––but a magical world; a beautiful world; yours!”
She half-hung her head. “But then––then––”
“It became a memory; bitter-sweet; yet more sweet than bitter!”
“And now?”
He did not answer immediately.
The figure of the count, as he had seen him the night before, had abruptly entered his mind. Did she understand? She smiled.
“And now?”