He caught her hand and pressed it to his lips. And then, with a joyous smile:
"I shall fight the better for the memory of this hour. Whatever your mission here, Mademoiselle, God grant you success in it. And for the part of one soul which passes yours like a ship in the night, I pray that we may meet again."
"It shall be so, perhaps," she said easily, though she flushed at the warmth of his words.
"When a razor and a bath shall have made me once more a gentleman," he added with a laugh.
"Perhaps that may be tomorrow?" she returned gaily.
The roguish smile that had died still-born upon her lips, there, earlier, in the garden, came suddenly upon the sweetness of her lips and gave them new lines of loveliness, which made him glad that she had saved it for the light where he might see.
She noted the look of admiration in his dark eyes, and turned quickly away, taking up a candle from the table.
"Until tomorrow, then, Monsieur," she said decisively. "For now you shall go to bed."
"I am no longer tired."
But she was already moving toward the stairway to the upper floors.