"For what?" he gains courage to ask, a little blankly.
"For our share in making you unhappy," she answers, very low.
Something in the proud humility of her attitude strikes a remorseful pang through his heart.
She stands alone in the center of the room, slender and graceful as a young palm tree, her head drooped slightly forward, the dew of unfallen tears shining like pearls in her long, dark lashes. She is like, yet unlike, the giddy Reine of a month ago.
"There is nothing to pardon," he says, in a flurried tone, "Mr. Langton was right. I have acted very badly—like a brute, in fact. You must wish you had never seen me."
"Yes," she says, low, but steadily. "It would have been so much better for you."
"I did not mean that," says he, disconcerted.
"You are good enough to say so," she replies, with delicate disbelief, and then she goes up to her uncle.
"The physician you sent for is here," she says. "Shall I send him in?"
"Are you so bad as that?" Vane asks, with a slight start.