"I … I will return to the château," she finally replied.
"The count was annoying you?" walking beside her.
"Thanks to you, Monsieur, the annoyance is past."
Some ground was gone over in silence. This silence disturbed her far more than the sound of his voice. It gave him a certain mastery. So she spoke.
"You said 'Madame'," tentatively.
"Such was the title D'Hérouville applied." And again he became silent.
"Did he tell you my name?" with a sudden and unexpected fierceness.
"No, Madame; he did not speak your name. But he knows it; while I, who love you honorably and more than my life, I must remain in ignorance. An expedition is to start soon, Madame, and as I shall join it, my presence here will no longer afford you annoyance."
"Wherefore this rage, Madame, shining in your beautiful eyes, thinning your lips, widening your nostrils?"
Madame was in a rage; but not even the promise of salvation would have forced the cause from her lips. O for Paris, where, lightly and wittily, she could humble this man! Here wit was stale on the tongue, and every one went about with a serious purpose. She went on, her chin tilted, her gaze lofty. The wind tossed her hair, there were phantom roses on her cheeks which bloomed and withered and bloomed yet again. Diane, indeed: Diane of the green Aegean sea and the marbles of Athens!