She paused. “Yes, madame—because?” he asked, offering her a chair. He was dressed in simple black, as on that first day when he called at the Manor, and it set off the ivory paleness of his complexion, making his face delicate yet strong.
She looked round the room, almost casually, before she went on
“Because what I have to say were better said to you alone—much better.”
“I am sure you are right,” he answered, as though he trusted her judgment utterly; and truly there was always something boy-like in his attitude towards her. The compliment was unstudied and pleasant, but she steeled herself for her task. She knew instinctively that she had influence with him, and she meant to use it to its utmost limit.
“I am glad, we are all glad, you are better,” she said cordially; then added, “how do your affairs come on? What are your plans?”
Valmond forgot that she was his inquisitor; he only saw her as his ally, his friend. So he spoke to her, as he had done at the Manor, with a sort of eloquence, of his great theme. He had changed greatly. The rhetorical, the bizarre, had left his speech. There was no more grandiloquence than might be expected of a soldier who saw things in the bright flashes of the battle-field—sharp pinges of colour, the dyes well soaked in. He had the gift of telling a story: some peculiar timbre in the voice, some direct dramatic touch. She listened quietly, impressed and curious. The impossibilities seemed for a moment to vanish in the big dream, and she herself was a dreamer, a born adventurer among the wonders of life. Were she a man, she would have been an explorer or a soldier.
But good judgment returned, and she gathered herself together for the unpleasant task that lay before her.
She looked him steadily in the eyes. “I have come to tell you that you must give up this dream,” she said slowly. “It can come to nothing but ill; and in the mishap you may be hurt past repair.”
“I shall never give up—this dream,” he said, surprised, but firm, almost dominant.
“Think of these poor folk who surround you, who follow you. Would you see harm come to them?”