"Your life, I hope." He smiled across at her. "So don't let us talk any more about the shadow. Only"—gently—"if I came nearer to you—the shadow might engulf you, too." He paused, then continued more lightly: "But if you'll forgive my barbarous incivility of Sunday, perhaps—perhaps I may be allowed to stand just on the outskirts of your life—watch you pass by on your road to fame, and toss a flower at your feet when all the world and his wife are crowding to hear the new prima donna." He had dropped back into the vein of light, ironical mockery which Diana was learning to recognise as characteristic of the man. It was like the rapier play of a skilled duellist, his weapon flashing hither and thither, parrying every thrust of his opponent, and with consummate ease keeping him ever at a distance.
"I wonder"—he regarded her with an expression of amused curiosity—"I wonder whether you would stoop to pick up my flower if I threw one? But, no"—he answered his own question hastily, giving her no time to reply—"you would push it contemptuously aside with the point of your little white slipper, and say to your crowd of admirers standing around you: 'That flower is the gift of a man—a rough boor of a man—who was atrociously rude to me once. I don't even value it enough to pick it up.' Whereupon every one—quite rightly, too!—would cry shame on the man who had dared to insult so charming a lady—probably adding that if bad luck befell him it would be no more than he deserved! . . . And I've no doubt he'll get his desserts," he added carelessly.
Diana felt the tears very near her eyes and her lip quivered.. This man had the power of hurting her—wounding her to the quick—with his bitter raillery.
When she spoke again her voice shook a little.
"You are wrong," she said, "quite wrong. I should pick up the flower and"—steadily—"I should keep it, because it was thrown to me by a man who had twice done me the greatest service in his power."
Once again he checked, as if by sheer force of will, a sudden eager movement towards her.
"Would you?" he said quickly. "Would you do that? But you would be mistaken; I should be gaining your kindness under false pretences. The greatest service in my power would be for me to go away and never see you again. . . . And, I can't do that—now," he added, his voice vibrating oddly.
His eyes held her, and at the sound of that sudden note of passion in his tone she felt some new, indefinable emotion stir within her that was half pain, half pleasure. Her eyelids closed, and she stretched out her hands a little gropingly, almost as if she were trying to ward away something that threatened her.
There was appeal in the gesture—a pathetic, half-childish appeal, as though the shy, virginal youth of her sensed the distant tumult of awakening passion and would fain delay its coming.
She was just a frank, whole-hearted girl, knowing nothing of love and its strange, inevitable claim, but deep within her spoke that instinct, premonition—call it what you will—which seems in some mysterious way to warn every woman when the great miracle of love is drawing near. It is as though Love's shadow fell across her heart and she were afraid to turn and face him—shrinking with the terror of a trapped wild thing from meeting his imperious demand.