CHAPTER XV
THE TALE OF LE BEAU DIABLE
His meeting with Ygerne two hours before noon cast out from his mind all thoughts which did not have to do with her. There was a new glory about her this morning, crowning her like an aureole. Partly was this due to a greater care in her dress and the arranging of her copper-brown hair; partly to the emotions which at sight of him charged through her. She was going down to her breakfast at Joe's when he saw her. He crossed the street to her, his face brightening like a boy's. As he moved along at her side, having had only a fleeting, tantalising glimpse of the grey of her eyes from under the wide brim of her hat, he whispered:
"Do you love me, Ygerne?"
There were men on the street who, though they might not hear the words, could not misread the look. She flushed a little, sent another flashing sidelong glance at him, making him no other answer than that. He asked none other. He accompanied her to Joe's and where they had dined the other evening in the privacy of the half shut-off room, they breakfasted now. Drennen ordered another cup of coffee for himself and forgot to drink it as he had forgotten the first.
Ygerne, on the other hand, ate her meal with composure. When he sought in a lover's undertone to refer to last night she remarked evasively upon the weather. When he said, over and over, "And you do love me, Ygerne?" she turned her eyes anywhere but upon his and refused to hear. And he laughed a new laugh, so different from that of yesterday, and worshipped man fashion and man fashion yearned to have her in his arms. When at last she had paid her own score, so insistent upon it that Drennen gave over amusedly, they went out together.
"We're going down the river," he told her quite positively. "I want you to sit upon a certain old log I know while I talk to you."
For a little he thought that she would refuse. Then, a hotter flush in her cheeks, she turned with him, passing down the river bank. They drew abreast of his dugout, Ygerne glancing swiftly in at the open door. They had grown silent, even Drennen finding little to say as they moved on. But at length they came to the log, having passed around many green willowed kinks in the Little MacLeod. The girl, sitting, either consciously or through chance, took the attitude in which Drennen had come upon her with the dual fever in his blood.
Thus Drennen's idyl began. Ygerne, staring straight out before her with wide, unseeing eyes, spoke swiftly, her voice a low monotone that fitted in well with the musing eyes. She loved him; she told him so in a strangely quiet tone and Drennen, wishing to believe, believed and thrilled under her words like the strings of an instrument under a sweeping hand. She told him that while he had been unsleeping last night neither had she slept.
"I didn't know that love came this way," she said. "It was easy to find interest in you; you were wrapped in it like a cloak. Then I think I came to hate you, just as you said that you hated me …"