He too had turned to the light, which revealed his face ravaged and aged by stress of emotion, revealed too the homelessness, as of empty space, resident in his eyes.
"I shall be glad to remember the place pleases and speaks to you. It has been rather a haven of rest to me during these last two years. You would have had it at my death, in any case. You have it a little sooner—that's all."
But Helen held out her arms.
"The villa, the villa," she cried, "what do I want with that! God in heaven, are you utterly devoid of all sensibility, all heart? Or are you afraid—afraid even yet, oh, very chicken-livered lover—that behind the beauty of Naples you may find the filth? It is not so, Dickie. It is not so, I tell you.—Look at me. What would you have more? Surely, for any man, my love is good enough!"
And then hurriedly, with a rustling of silken skirts, hot with anger from head to heel, she sprang to her feet.
Across the room one of the men-servants advanced.
"The carriage is at the door, sir," he said.
And Madame de Vallorbes' voice broke in with a singular lightness and nonchalance:—
"Surely it is rather imprudent to go out again to-night? You told me, at dinner, you were not well, that you had had a touch of fever."
She held out her hand, smiling serenely.