'What heroic thing ever is?'
He went away, leaving her presence with some irritation and some discontent. He knew that he had only said what was best for Damaris when he had counselled her to have no concealment from her grandfather; but the idea of the child's having suffered through his advice, the thought of her taken from her sunny happy life amongst her orange-groves and honey-scented air, and all the gay fresh freedom of her seas, into some strange and unknown place—perhaps into some forced and joyless union—hurt him with almost a personal pain.
The wild rose had paid dearly for its one day in the hothouse.
'Why could not Nadège let her alone?' he thought angrily as he looked across the shining sea to the gold of the far distance, where westward the island which had sheltered the happy childhood of Damaris lay unseen.
CHAPTER XVI.
A few days later they left the coast for Amyôt and Paris. There was no record left of their visit to Bonaventure save the rough sketch which Loris Loswa had made, and from which he still meant some time, when he should have leisure, to create a great picture. One day Othmar bought the sketch of him at one of those exaggerated prices which Loswa could command for any trifle which he had touched.
When his wife saw it hanging in his room in Paris she laughed.
'You are determined,' she said, 'that I shall not forget my Desclée manquée.'
'I do not think you were kind to her,' said Othmar.