“Pardon, Mademoiselle!” he says through his set teeth, “I forgot my gloves! I am sorry to have interrupted you.”
And Marguerite, forgetting the conventional smile which is one of the tricks of her trade, sits silent and a little uncomfortable.
“We may as well walk a little way together,” Lord Delaval says quietly. “Mademoiselle’s society is so charming, I really forgot the hour!”
CHAPTER VIII.
“DON’T YOU KNOW ME, DELAVAL?”
“And where the red was—lo! the bloodless white,
And where truth was—the likeness of a liar,
And where day was—the likeness of the night,
This is the end of every man’s desire!”
The world seems very dark to Lord Delaval to-day—a terrible chaos, in fact, in which right is hopelessly, inextricably, mingled with wrong.
He hates and scorns himself for this passion for Marguerite Ange, which gives him neither rest nor peace.
He swears he will leave Paris and never set eyes on her again; then he believes it is Kismet, bows to the inevitable, and resolves not to struggle against a feeling that is evidently stronger than himself.
Then comes a reaction once more.
“There is nothing to be done but to go right away. There’s not much fear she’ll break her heart, or that I have really inspired a grande passion. Her sort are not much given to fretting after one man, when a dozen are at her beck,” he says to himself sardonically. “But I will go and wish her good-bye. That much will be but gentlemanly.”