“Why not make the best of it?” said Mauville, 162 softly, but with glance sparkling in spite of himself. “After all, are you not giving yourself needless apprehensions? You are at home here. Anything you wish shall be yours. Consider yourself mistress; me, one of your servants!”
Almost imperceptibly his manner had changed. Instinctive misgivings which had assailed her in the coach with him now resolved themselves into assured fears. Something she could not explain had aroused her suspicions before they reached the manor, but his words had glossed these inward qualms, and a feeling of obligation suggested trust, not shrinking; but, with his last words, a full light illumined her faculties; an association of ideas revealed his intent and performance.
“It was you, then,” she said, slowly, studying him with steady, penetrating glance.
“You!” she repeated, with such contempt that he was momentarily disconcerted. “The man in the carriage––he was hired by you. The driver––his face is familiar. I remember now where I saw him––in the Shadengo Valley. He is your coachman. Your rescue was planned to deceive me. It deceived even your man. He had not expected that. Your reassuring me was false; the plan to change horses a trick to get me here––”
“If you would but listen––”
“When”––her eyes ablaze––“will this farce end?”
Her words took him unawares. Not that he dreaded the betrayal of his actual purpose. On the contrary, 163 his reckless temper, chafing under her unexpected obduracy, now welcomed the opportunity of discarding the disinterested and chivalrous part he had assumed.
“When it ends in a honeymoon, ma belle Constance!” he said, swiftly.
His sudden words, removing all doubts as to his purpose, awoke such repugnance in her that for a moment aversion was paramount to every other feeling. Again she looked without, but only the solitude of the fields and forests met her glance.
The remoteness of the situation gave the very boldness of his plan feasibility. Was he not his own magistrate in his own province? Why, then, he had thought, waste the golden moments? He had but one heed now; a study of physical beauty, against a crimson background.