So he goes, a few days after the supper party, to the Rue Tronchet.
The lovely cause of so much heartburning leans back as usual among her vivid scarlet cushions, doing nothing, as is her wont—like the lilies of the field, she neither toils nor spins, but she looks in her shady, luxurious room, provokingly cool and languid, and far away from the troubles and perplexities of this work-a-day world.
But the dreaminess of her eyes is lost in the radiant light that transfigures her face as Lord Delaval enters, and starting up, she holds out two hands without a word, but with a smile that is more than a welcome.
He takes them absently and seats himself beside her in rather an abstracted way, and when he speaks, it is of the subject that is uppermost in his mind.
“I’ve come to say good-bye, Marguerite.”
“Good-bye?” she repeats in a startled voice.
“Yes. I am going away.”
“Where?”
Her accents tremble, her face blanches. It dawns upon her at once that this is no ordinary leave-taking.
“Oh, somewhere! Anywhere! What does it matter where, since it will be where I shall not see your face?” he asks, and he bites his lip to hide its quivering.