“Then why do it?” she asked, drawing back and busying herself with the flowers, which she laid against her breast, as if to judge the effect of their colour against the delicate white of her dress. “Why run into danger? Why come downstairs at all?”
“Why breathe?” he retorted, with a laugh. “Why eat, or drink, or sleep? Why live? Mon Dieu! because there is no choice. And when I see you in the garden, there is no choice for me, Mademoiselle. I must come down and run into danger, because I cannot help it any more than I can help—”
“But you need not stay,” she interrupted, cleverly. “A brave man may always retire from danger into safety.”
“But he may not always want to, Mademoiselle.”
“Ah!”
And, with a shrug of the shoulders, she inserted the primroses within a very small waistband and turned away.
“Will you give me those primroses, Mademoiselle?” asked Loo, without moving; for, although she had turned to go, she had not gone.
She turned on her heel and looked at him, with demure surprise, and then bent her head to look at the flowers at her own waist.
“They are mine,” she answered, standing in that pretty attitude, her hair half concealing her face. “I picked them myself.”
“Two reasons why I want them.”