“Am I less wonderful,” she asked, “because I come from the gutter?—because I am a wanton and spy?”
“Not less wonderful to M. de Richelieu,” answered Luc, “but to me you no longer exist save as a shadowy riddle. That can be no grief to you, Madame.”
She unclasped her hands and raised her head; she took up her hat and flung it down again; she cast herself on the settee and pulled at the heavy lace on her bosom. All the while he watched her, never moving.
“I wanted to help you,” she said, breathing quickly. “It is not my fault that you blindly accepted me—M. de Biron must know. I wished to help you ever since we tramped the snow together in Bohemia.”
He thought of her with the dead child in her arms and holding the dying head of Georges d’Espagnac; he looked at her tenderly.
“Poor soul!” he whispered.
The words seemed to sting her into fierceness.
“Am I so soiled that you pity me?” she demanded. “I pity you too—you who are flinging everything away for glory—glory!” She laid a passionate sneer on the word, but Luc was unmoved.
“I believe that you wished to help me—I think you must have a generous soul, Madame. But you cannot help me.”
“So it seems,”—she became slack and weary again, and the blood ebbed from her face,—“and yet there was a chance for one not so nice about his means.”