“And I will tell you,” she continued, “that you have won what many another man has tried to get and never will get at all, the affection and adoration and sympathy of one foolish woman’s heart.”
“Why foolish?” he asked, putting up a hand to try to induce her to come from behind him so that he might see her face.
She clung the closer to his neck. “Because,” she said, “you have found out that I love you. I should never have allowed you to know it. I have fretted over it and worried and cried till I was ill, but it was of no use.”
“It was fate,” he said; “you will marry me?”
“Good-night,” she murmured; “good-night, good-night. You will never see me like this again.”
He felt her warm lips on his ear and cheek, then she was gone. He hastily got up and had one glimpse of her before she disappeared into her room, one hand clasping the train of her white gown, her head carried well in the air.
“Not to be repeated, eh?” he muttered disapprovingly. “Well, we’ll see about that,” and with eyes bent thoughtfully on the floor he too left the room. In the hall he ran against Camperdown. “How is Stargarde?” he asked.
“All right; how is ma’m’selle?”
“All wrong,” and Armour’s strong white teeth gleamed for an instant through his heavy mustache. Then he went on his way downstairs, trying to recall to his mind a gipsy prophecy uttered about him when he was a lad, strolling one day about the environs of Halifax with Étienne Delavigne. Ah, this was it; the old woman, thrusting her wedge-shaped face close to his, had muttered it twice: “Self first, wife second, friends a matter of indifference, reputation dearer than life.”
“A part of it has come true,” said Armour heavily; “I wonder what about the rest?”