CHAPTER XX. — THE SCORN OF KINGS
Inside the tavern, from whence the singing proceeded, there was a strange scene,—somewhat disorderly yet picturesque. Lotys, seated at the head of a long supper-table, had been crowned by her admirers with a wreath of laurels,—and as she sat more or less silent, with a rather weary expression on her face, she looked like the impersonation of a Daphne, exhausted by the speed of her flight from pursuing Apollo. Beside her, nestling close against her caressingly, was a little girl with great black Spanish eyes,—eyes full of an appealing, half-frightened wistfulness, like those of a hunted animal. Lotys kept one arm round the child, and every now and again spoke to her some little caressing word. All the rest of the guests at the supper-board were men,—and all of them members of the Revolutionary Committee. When Pasquin Leroy and his friends entered, there was a general clapping of hands, and the pale countenance of Lotys flushed a delicate rose-red, as she extended her hand to each.
“You begin your career with us very well!” she said gently, her eyes resting musingly on Leroy; “I had not expected to see you to-night!”
“Madame, I had never heard you speak,” he answered; and as he addressed her, he pressed her hand with unconscious fervour, while his eloquent eyes dilated and darkened, as, moved by some complex emotion, she quickly withdrew her slender fingers from his clasp. “And I felt I should never know you truly as you are, till I saw you face the people. Now——”
He paused. She looked at him wonderingly, and her heart began to beat with a strange quick thrill. It is not always easy to see the outlines of a soul’s development, or the inchoate formation of a great love,—and though everything in a certain sense moved her and appealed to her that was outside herself, it was difficult to her to believe or to admit that she, in her own person, might be the cause of an entirely new set of thoughts and emotions in the mind of one man. Seeing he was silent, she repeated softly and with a half smile.
“‘Now’?”
“Now,” continued Leroy quickly, and in a half-whisper; “I do know you partly,—but I must know you more! You will give me the chance to do that?”
His look said more than his words, and her face grew paler than before. She turned from him to the child at her side—
“Pequita, are you very tired?”
“No!” was the reply, given brightly, and with an upward glance of the dark eyes.