“She’s either a creature of a hundred moods,” he thought musingly, “or she has an extraordinary facial control.”
Fanchon seemed to feel his thought. His very attitude, aloof and challenging and critical, affected her. She shivered, covering her eyes with her hands.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she cried passionately. “Mon Dieu, I can’t bear it! You—you hate me!”
Daniel reddened; he found himself in an uncomfortable position. Had he shown his hostility so strongly? Had he let this wild young creature see that he felt she was an interloper?
“You’re talking nonsense, Fanchon,” he said gravely. “I hate no one—as far as I can remember. I’m a colorless fellow, you know, and a cripple. I don’t count.”
She lifted her face from her hands at that and looked at him again, her dark eyes soft, tender, almost caressing.
“Why do you think of that so much?” she asked him kindly. “It hurts you all through to your soul, I see it! Yet it doesn’t matter—ça ne fait rien! You’re only a little lame, it is so interesting, si distingué.”
“Thank you,” he smiled bitterly. “If you keep on, Fanchon, I shall have cause to love you in good earnest. I hate being lame.”
“I know it!” Her eyes still dwelt on his with a kind of wild softness—the sylvan, fawn-like look again. “And I care—see? Yet you can’t like me! Oh, I know”—she shook her head—“I always know—because I’ve been unhappy, too.”
“You?” he smiled, this time with amusement. “You seem to me a thing of thistledown and sunshine, a sprite, a nymph—anything but unhappy.”