“You will be faithful?” she said.
“Unto death!” answered Leroy.
She came close up to him, placing one hand on his arm, and glanced meaningly towards Sergius Thord, who was standing at the threshold watching Zouche stumbling down the dark stairs.
“Sergius is a good man!” she said; “One of the mistaken geniuses of this world,—savage as a lion, yet simple as a child! Whoever, and whatever you are, be true to him!”
“He is dear to you?” said Leroy on a sudden impulse, catching her hand; “He is more to you than most men?”
She snatched away her hand, and her eyes lightened first with wrath, then with laughter.
“Dear to me!” she echoed,—“to Me? No one man on earth is dearer to me than another! All are alike in my estimation,—all the same barbaric, foolish babes and children—all to be loved and pitied alike! But Sergius Thord picked me out of the streets when I was no better than a stray and starving dog,—and like a dog I serve him—faithfully! Now go!”
She stretched out her hand in an attitude of command, and there was nothing for it but to obey. They therefore repeated their farewells, and in their turn, went out, one by one, down the tortuous staircase. Sholto, the hunchback, was below, and he let them out without a word, closing and barring the door carefully behind them. Once in the street and under the misty moonlight, Pasquin Leroy nodded a careless dismissal to his companions.
“You will return alone?” enquired Max Graub.
“Quite alone!” was the reply.