The girl's cheeks burned with a swift crimson and she set her lips together. She was on the verge of extreme anger just then, but after a little the flush died down again and the dark fire went out of her eyes. She made an odd gesture with her two hands. It seemed to express fatigue as much as anything--a great weariness.
"I like him," she said. "I like him--enough, I suppose. He is good--and kind--and gentle. He will be good to me. And I shall try very, very hard, to make him happy."
Quite suddenly and without warning the fire of her anger burned up again. She flamed defiance in the man's face.
"How dare you question me?" she cried. "What right have you to ask me questions about such a thing? You--what you are!"
Ste. Marie bent his head.
"No right, Mademoiselle," said he, in a low voice. "I have no right to ask you anything--not even forgiveness. I think I am a little mad to-day. It--this news came to me suddenly. Yes, I think I am a little mad."
The girl stared at him and he looked back with sombre eyes. Once more he was stabbed with intolerable pain to think what she was. Yet in an inexplicable fashion it pleased him that she should carry out her trickery to the end with a high head. It was a little less base, done proudly. He could not have borne it otherwise.
"Who are you," the girl cried, in a bitter resentment, "that you should understand? What do you know of the sort of life I have led--we have led together, my father and I? Oh, I don't mean that I'm ashamed of it! We have nothing to feel shame for, but you simply do not know what such a life is."
Though he writhed with pain, the man nodded over her. He was so glad that she could carry it through proudly, with a high hand, an erect head.
She spread out her arms before him, a splendid and tragic figure.