“And I also,” I replied, looking down at her slight, girlish figure, as with deft fingers she rearranged the roses in her lap. “For to one fresh from the reeking kennels of London, where pestilence stalks hand in hand with crime, this old world garden where you live comes as a glimpse of Eden.”
“Yet I have read, sir,” she said impulsively, “that every Eden has its——”
She broke off abruptly without finishing the sentence; and even in the dusk I saw the warm blood mantle to her brow.
“Its serpent, you would say,” I said quietly, reading her thoughts; “aye, madam?”
For a moment or two there was silence—a silence broken only by the soft sound of the falling water and the voices of the night. I glanced at the woman before me and my heart sank. What a gulf there was between her life and mine!
Presently she spoke.
“It was a thoughtless speech,” she said in a low voice. “I pray you forget my hasty words.”
Again there was silence between us. But the memory of my errand in this place, of my lady’s open scorn, and of the haunting feeling of unrest that I had previously felt recurred to me again with double force.
“You, at least, do not hate me, madam,” I said bitterly, leaning upon the marble basin and gazing into the water below.
“It may be that I have not my sister’s pride,” she answered slowly, “or it may be that my nature is not formed for hatred. And then—” she continued, bending lower over the flowers, so that I could not see her face.