“I must go.”
“Why?” asked Denise, with a dangerous quiet in her voice.
“I cannot tell you.”
“Then you expect a great deal.”
De Vasselot slowly untwined his fingers and drew in his arm.
“True,” he said reflectively. “I must ask nothing or too much. I asked more than you can give, mademoiselle.”
A faint smile flickered across Denise's eyes. Who was he, to say how much a woman can give? She was free to go now, but did not move.
“With Corsica and—” she paused and glanced at his helpless attitude in the long chair,—“and the war, your life is surely sufficiently occupied as it is,” she said coldly.
“But these evil times will pass. The war will cease, and then one may think of being happy. So long as there is war, I must of course fight—fight—fight, while there is a France to fight for.”
Denise laughed.