His answer came unsteadily.
"You have lost so little—God knows how little—but I have lost—everything."
Her delicate breast heaved.
"Have I given you nothing, my lord—nothing that you may keep always?"
"You shame me," said Rose Lyndwood, "and I am too ignoble for these words you speak to me. I have been born and bred in folly, and in folly I must live and die, but I am not yet a patient fool to take this smilingly——"
The manifold colours of the stage flashed and glittered. Roxana shrieked, and Statira lost her fire staring at an empty box, but these two saw nothing.
The mantle slipped from Miss Boyle's shoulders, showing her pale, shining dress, and the tender curve of her chin and throat. The Earl spoke again:
"Because I thought of you I was false to you; because I had you always in my thoughts I put you out of my life; but this you must have known, and I but mar with words my meaning. 'Tis when we strive to interpret our silences that we misunderstand one another."
"About Marius?" breathed Miss Boyle. "Susannah wrote me somewhat——"