"Unless when you add a year or two," he said. She had ventured on a glance upward at him over her work, and he caught the glance, being on the watch, and made a point on his own side by that which replied to it. "I suppose both have their uses," he added, "to attract or to repel."
"If you think," said Mademoiselle hastily, "that all women think of is either to attract or repel——! But even were it so, it is but a small number of women who are within that circle. In youth it may be the object of too many thoughts, but when a woman is in the midst of life, do her thoughts dwell on such arts more than a man's? No, Mr Wargrave, it is not just to say so."
"Mademoiselle de Castel-Sombre," he said with great gravity, pronouncing every syllable, till she smiled at the formality in spite of herself, "I am not superior to such arts, if I knew how to use them. And, man or woman, I think the desire to please is of itself a great charm."
"It must be kept within bounds," she said, vaguely, scarcely knowing what it was she said.
"There would be no bounds in mine if I had the luck to succeed," he said, "or even the hope of succeeding." Then he stopped himself with a little abruptness, and there was a silence during which the birds came in singing, and the leaves rustling in a curious little interlude which Mademoiselle never forgot. At last he said: "The opportunity of speaking with you alone goes to my head. And I run the risk of wearying you, I know, of pressing prematurely. I wish you would tell me—anything you would like me to do."
"Yes," she said, suddenly putting down her work and looking up at him. She saw against the trees, for a moment, his head bent forward, his look of profound pleasure, the expectation in his face. "If you wish to please me," she said, "you will go away."
It was cruel, and she felt it to be cruel,—an insult flung full in his face when he looked for it so little. He sprang suddenly to his feet as if he had been shot. His countenance changed. Mademoiselle bent her head again, not to see what she had done.
"Mademoiselle!" he cried, with a pang in his voice, then composing himself. "If that is really what you wish—if it is the only thing I can do for you, to relieve you of my presence——"
"Forgive me!" said Mademoiselle, very low. She added more distinctly: "Monsieur Wargrave will see that here, in the home of his family, who would resent it so much, is the last place in the world——"
"Confound my family!" he cried, then begged her pardon hastily; "they are not my family—a cousin, to whom I am no more responsible than to his gardener."