Even so, when she stood by the little gate on which were inscribed in faint characters “La Solitude” and saw the two start off for what had now become their daily drive in the beautiful hilly country which lies behind Monaco, she had a sensation that something was going to happen, and she was filled with doubt, anxiety, and suspense.
How terrible to think that the future of so great and ancient a family as the Poldas should depend on the whim of a foolish girl of twenty-one!
CHAPTER XXVI
“You are frightening me, Beppo! We have been out long enough. Let us go home.”
Lily Fairfield was speaking in a very quiet, level voice, but her face looked white and strained.
Beppo had stopped the motor beside a steep and lonely mountain gorge; and now he was pouring a torrent of violent, passionate words of love into her ear. As soon as his hand was free he had grasped her left wrist as in a vice, and now he was trying to force her to look round at him.
But she went on staring before her, a look of endurance and growing fear on her pale face.
“There is nothing to be frightened of, Lily. Do you not understand that I love you? I love you as an Indian devotee worships his idol! You are in no danger from me. I should not have spoken to you to-day had you not seemed so gentle and so kind. I thought your cold heart might be melting a little—that you might be feeling touched by my silent devotion! Now that I am going away so soon—surely I may speak? What is there between us—what is that menacing shadow that always rises up when I speak to you, God knows with infinite reverence and respect, of my love for you?”
He was speaking in broken, agitated, pleading tones, and yet there was an underlying touch of fierceness in his voice which in very truth did terrify the girl. And the expression on his face had so changed that he seemed a savage stranger, rather than a friend.
She knew that they were miles and miles from La Solitude—for all she knew, miles and miles away from any human habitation—and she was sick with fear and distress. She felt as if she was dealing with a madman.