Lorelie drew a deep shuddering breath. Their eyes met: a strange wistful tenderness in hers. Such a look Idris had never before received from woman: he knew what it meant, and grew giddy at the thought that he had the power to evoke it.
Then, in a moment, all was changed!
A priestess, starting in agony from the Delphic tripod, could not have exhibited a wilder mien than did Lorelie at that moment as she rose to her feet, her hands pressed to her bosom as if to repress the emotion struggling there: in her eyes an expression of horror, the startled guilty look of one who, tempted to listen to wrong, is suddenly recalled to a sense of duty.
Idris had wanted to say more, to speak of the depth of his love, but that look chilled all the warmth of his feelings, and checked the words that were rising to his lips.
"Mr. Breakspear," she began, with a strange "catch" in her voice, "you saved my life from the sea, and it may be that gratitude has led me to—to—how shall I express myself?—to be too warm in my friendship. I have not guarded myself sufficiently. If there has been anything in my manner or words calculated to impress you with the belief that your addresses would be acceptable to me, I beg—I entreat—of you to forgive me. Such utterance—such action—on my part has been unintentional. I cannot listen to you."
With many women a "No" may sometimes mean "Yes," but this was not the case with Lorelie Rivière. Idris felt that her decision was final, irrevocable. And yet what was the meaning of that first look of rapture that had come into her eyes?
"You do well to refuse me, mademoiselle: to refuse in truth any suitor, for who indeed is worthy of you, but——"
"Mr. Breakspear, for pity's sake be silent. See!"
She drew something from her dress-pocket, turned aside for a moment, and then held out the third finger of her left hand. And at the sight Idris, strong man though he was, staggered as a man may stagger on hearing his death sentence.
"Great heaven! You are not married?" he said hoarsely.