She touched his arm, almost timidly.
“Promise me, dear,” she said—“please promise me.”
She did not realize what she had called him; nor, indeed, did he, until days afterward, too late to turn it to account; though what he answered worked far more to his profit, than had he used the chance offered by an inadvertent endearment.
“I promise,” he said; “I ought not to; but because you wish it, I promise—now will you tell me?”
She looked up at him gratefully—and such women as Elise d’Essoldé can say much with their eyes. They had mounted the steps and were on the terrace; she pointed into the Park.
“It was in the japonica walk,” she said; “I was waiting for you, when Lotzen came upon me, seemingly by accident——”
“There are no accidents with Lotzen,” Moore broke in.
“It may be, but he chose to treat it so;—I tried to pass—he stopped me and begged forgiveness for his brutal rudeness of the other day; I forgave him indifferently, hoping to escape quickly, and tried again to pass. He caught my wrist, and demanded a kiss, and that I walk with him to the lake. I was close against the hedge, and it was in my struggles to get free from him that the sharp thorns tore my gown. He let me thrash out my strength, holding me all the time by this wrist; presently, when he was about to kiss me by main force, I bit him in the hand, and escaped, running at top speed, and in fright and exhaustion collapsing where you found me.... That was all, Ralph,” she ended.
Moore’s intense repression found some relief in a long breath.
“All!” he said, rather huskily; “all! ... well, all I ask is, some day, to have him against me, sword in hand.”