It was the first time she had ever called him Loris, except in her own home, and as a partial echo of the dowager. His eyes thanked her, and Kenneth McVeigh received the benefit both of her words and the look.
“But, my dear Marquise, it will give me pleasure to make you something finer of the same subject.”
“No, no; only the sketch. I will value it as a souvenir of––well––do not let any one else have it.”
Then she bowed, flashed a rare smile at him, and they wheeled away with McVeigh facing her and noting with his 94 careless smile every expression of her coquetry. He had gone away a boy––so she had called him; but he had come back man enough to hide the hurts she gave him, and willing to let her know it.
Someway he appeared more as he had when she met him first under the beeches; then he had seemed so big, so strong, so masterful, that she had never thought of his years. But she knew now he was younger than he looked.
She had plenty of time to think of this, and of many other things, during the drive.
The Countess monopolized the young officer with her questions. He endeavored to make the replies she invited, and neither of them appeared to note that the share of the Marquise was limited to an interested expression, and an occasional smile.
She studied his well-formed, strong hands, and thought of the night they had held her own––thought of all the impetuous, passionate words; try as she would to drive them away they came back with a rush as his cool, widely different tones fell on her ear. What a dissembler the fellow was! All that evil nature which she knew about was hidden under an exterior so engaging! “If one only loved where it was wise to love, all the sorrows of the world would be ended,” those words of the pretty figureante haunted her, with all their meaning beating through her brain. What a farce seemed the careless, empty chatter beside her! It grew unbearable, to feel his careless glance sweep across her face, to hear him laugh carelessly, to be conscious of the fact that after all he was the stronger; he could face her easily, graciously, and she did not dare even meet his eyes lest he should, after all, see; the thought of her weakness frightened her; suppose he should compel her to the truth. Suppose––
She felt half hysterical; the drive had never before been so long. She feared she must scream––do something to break through this horrible chain of circumstances, linking them for even so short a space within touch of each other. And he was the man she had promised herself to hate, to make suffer, to––