He sprang in pursuit—and stopped; she would pass the hedge before he could overtake her; and the open Park was no place for love making of the violent sort—nor with a wound that spurted red. The business would have to bide, for the present.... Over toward the terrace he saw the flutter of a white gown.
“Damn the little cat!” he muttered; “she shall pay me well for this.”
Elise d’Essoldé, spent with running, her brain in a whirl, her hair dishevelled, weak-kneed and trembling now with the reaction, reached the marble steps near the pergola and sank on the lowest, just as Colonel Moore came springing down them, his eyes toward the japonica walk, searching for the girl in a white gown whom he was to have met there half an hour ago.
And he would have passed, unseeing, had she not spoken.
“Ralph!” she said, “Ralph!”
He swung around.
“Elise!” he exclaimed, “I’m sorry to be so late—I was—heaven, child, what has happened?”
The sight of him, and the sound of his voice, had calmed her instantly and put her pulse to normal beating; and now that she was with him, safe and unscathed, the coquette in her could not resist the temptation to torment him.
“Another kept the rendezvous,” she answered, with affected naïveté.
He pointed to the torn gown.