"Does it mean you no longer care?"
He made a movement as if he turned on her.
"Do you want me to say I do?"
"Perhaps so," she answered huskily. "Perhaps I find nothing else worth living for. Do you think it has been pleasant for me since I saw you last in the Luxembourg?"
Her words made no impression on him. He was thinking of those three a few yards away—of Susannah at her harp, of my lady with the open book on her knee, of my lord listening to the music, as they had so often done before. There were only two doors and a length of corridor between them.
"Why do you look at me so strangely?" asked the Countess. "Cannot you say good-bye and go?"
Every word she said expressed this desire—to have it all secret, hidden away, concealed, to deceive Rose and "these women."
Marius straightened himself.
"I will go, madam."