"Forgive me," pleadingly. "I cannot help but revive it again. St. Leon, when you quoted that epicurean motto, 'eat, drink, and be merry,' you forgot that latter clause, 'for to-morrow we die.'"
He shrugged his broad shoulders impatiently.
"Well?" he said.
"'For to-morrow we die,'" she repeated. "And oh, St. Leon, there is no heir to Eden!"
"Quelle importe?" lifting his dark brows with a slight gesture of indifference.
"Oh, my son, do not treat it with indifference," she cried. "You are the last Le Roy of your race. The fine old name will die with you, the wealth of the Le Roys will pass to strangers, unless you marry and leave an heir. I am proud. I cannot bear to have it thus. Oh, St. Leon, choose yourself a wife and me a daughter from among the fair dames of your own land."
Her handsome, haughty old face was transformed with emotion, her dark eyes dim with tears. He turned from the sight of it and looked from the window again, but the slim white figure no longer gleamed among the green trees and the bright parterres of flowers. It had strayed out of sight.
"Where shall I find you a daughter worthy of your love, my lady mother?" he said, lightly, yet with some intangible emotion beneath his tone.
She hesitated, and her glance, too, wandered from the window and came back disappointed.
"St. Leon, what do you think of Beatrix Gordon?" she asked, wistfully.