She continued as though she had not heard:
“And I hope to see you wearing it—a little later on. Good-night, my friend. Do not be anxious for my safety. My coachman will be cautious. All will be well!” She added: “You see I am becoming prudent, rather late in the day.”
He said, and his tone grated:
“They will mark the day in the calendar with red.”
A sob set the warm sweet air within the enchanted brougham vibrating.
“You are too cruel. I have been guilty of an act of unpardonable folly. But who would have dreamed of so terrible a result?”
“Anyone,” he answered her in a bitter undertone, “who has ever set a kindled match to gunpowder, or poured alcohol upon a blazing fire!”
The light from the carriage-lamps showed his white face plainly. His hard blue eyes frightened her,—his forehead seemed that of a judge. She shivered, and her whisper was as piercing as a scream:
“Or dared a woman to commit an act of rashness. Do not you in your heart condemn me as a murderess? Your tongue may deny it, but your eyes have told me that instead of rolling in a carriage over those bloodstained stones beyond these gates, I should crawl over them upon my hands and knees. Is it not so, Alain?”
Between the thick frosted flowers of her veil, her brilliant glance penetrated. A cold little creeping shudder stiffened the hair upon his scalp and trickled down between his broad shoulders like melted snow.... Her breath came to him as a breeze that has passed over a field of flowering clover. Her lips, as they uttered his name, stung him to the anguished longing for their kiss.