Madame’s eyes fell from her face. “But yes--” she whispered, “and what did he say, Raoul, when you asked him that?”
There was a new look in her eyes now, and a little color in her pale cheeks.
“He said he was sorry,” said Rose, gently. “He said he never would have behaved like that, and never meant to--it was only the music, he said, he often lost his head over music, and that that afternoon he had felt how great a success his marriage was--so that it was doubly unfortunate. He said he wanted to come back to you very much.”
There was a moment’s pause. Madame Gérard’s voice was quite different when she spoke now, there was hope in it. “And what answer did you give him, Madame?” she said. “I think I can see by your eyes that you gave him an answer.”
Rose nodded. “I told him--I had a feeling that you would forgive him--and that I would ask you, if you did, to send him a line to-night--saying if you would see him, and where, of course! You see I didn’t know where you were at the time--but I found you quite easily, because I had remembered something that Léon had said to me about this special view.”
Léon buried his head in his hands and laughed wildly. He laughed to save himself from tears. Madame Gérard said nothing at all; but she stretched out her hand for the tea Rose had poured out for her and began to drink it.
Rose ate two rolls and a half. “I’m afraid you’ll think I’m dreadfully greedy,” she explained, “but I haven’t had any lunch, or any breakfast either, properly.”
“But I,” said Léon, coming from behind his hands, “I cannot meet Monsieur Gérard to-morrow?”
“No,” said Rose, “but I left my luggage on the Quay. There is a boat that goes to Venice to-night, and I thought,” she murmured with a diffident, disarming smile, “that perhaps you wouldn’t mind if we just went to Venice, Léon. It would be more gay.”
THE END