“Do you mean heart-weary?” sounded Miss Moorsom’s voice. “You don’t know me, I see.”
“Ah! Never despair,” he muttered.
“This, Mr. Renouard, is a work of reparation. I stand for truth here. I can’t think of myself.”
He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an insult to his passion; but he only said—
“I never doubted the—the—nobility of your purpose.”
“And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this connection surprises me. And from a man too who, I understand, has never counted the cost.”
“You are pleased to tease me,” he said, directly he had recovered his voice and had mastered his anger. It was as if Professor Moorsom had dropped poison in his ear which was spreading now and tainting his passion, his very jealousy. He mistrusted every word that came from those lips on which his life hung. “How can you know anything of men who do not count the cost?” he asked in his gentlest tones.
“From hearsay—a little.”
“Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to suffering, victims of spells. . . .”
“One of them, at least, speaks very strangely.”