“Mon Dieu!” he cried, with sudden exasperation. “Of course I want you!”
She drew back a little from the savage light in his eyes--he had caught her arm suddenly and roughly--but in an instant he had himself in hand. “Now I am going,” he said. “You are not to be frightened any more. You are mine, my sweetheart, my wife, my darling! How I love the pretty English words!--and you will love a little your funny French husband, will you not?--and forgive him, if you do not always understand him.”
He took her very gently in his arms, and kissed her troubled eyes and put his lips lingeringly and tenderly to hers. There were tears on her eyelashes, but she smiled bravely up at him. “I will never forget what you have said,” she murmured, “and I will love you always.”
Then he went away. After he had gone, it occurred to Rose that she was to belong to him, but if they were to be happy he must not belong to her. She did not put it quite as sharply as this, but she reminded herself that the great thing was for Léon never to feel bound.
Madame came in from the bureau to put out the lights. “You will not need them any more, Mademoiselle,” she asked, “now that Monsieur has gone?”
“No,” said Rose. “Thank you very much. Madame, are you French?”
“No, Mademoiselle,” the Manageress replied. “I am a Swiss from Basle.”
“But you know French people?” Rose insisted.
Madame shrugged her shoulders. “I know most people,” she observed. “Even Arabs, I once kept a hotel in Egypt; but why do you ask, Mademoiselle?”
“I wondered,” Rose said, “if you thought them--the French, I mean--very difficult to please?”