She yawned a little behind her hand and gave him a sign of dismissal.
'Pray let me hear no more about her,' she said coldly. 'And if you will forgive me for saying so—I am tired—good-night.'
'Will you not send away your women?' said Othmar in a low tone, with a flush of irritation on his face.
'No, thanks—good-night.'
He hesitated a moment, mastering a great anger which rose up in him; then he touched her hand coldly with his lips and left the room.
'If she thinks she will be able to treat me as she did that poor humble dead fool——' he thought with mortified impatience.
With the waywardness of human nature he wished for that mere human fondness which probably, he knew, had he had it, would have soon tired and palled on him.
As he went out from her presence now, he thought, he knew not why, of the girl Damaris. What warmth on those untouched lips! what deep wells of emotion in those darksome eyes! what treasures of affection in that faithful and frank heart! Poor little soul!—and the best he could wish her was to live in dull content beside Gros Louis.
Nadine heard the doors close one after another, as he left her apartments, with a little smile about her mouth.
'How easy it is to punish them,' she thought; 'and to think there are women who do not know how!'