She said, and the silvern voice had the sweetness of Cordelia's:
"I am so very sorry! Could you not prevail upon this dishonest gentleman to restore to you your property?"
P. C. Breagh said, with a flash of white teeth in his blunt-featured freckled face:
"I might, if he had been considerate enough to mention where I could find him! ... Meanwhile..." He shrugged his strong young shoulders in rather a despondent way.
"Meanwhile you are without a home ... and without money?"
He nodded, biting fiercely on his jutting underlip. "Just now! But by-and-by——"
She persisted.
"Without money and—starving! Surely, starving! and that was why you fainted! ... And I, mon Dieu!—I have been blind and stupid.... Je ne me doutais de rien! Forgive me, I beg of you!"
Her small face was all white and pinched and working. Sobs choked her voice; she struck her little bosom—she wrung the tiny hands in anguish.... And it was all real. You could not doubt Juliette's sincerity. And though his manhood was sufficiently new to revolt at commiseration, still, it was not unpleasant to know that one's misfortunes had pierced the bucklered pride of the little Infanta, and wrung tears from the most wonderful eyes he had ever seen. And what was she saying?
"Monsieur Breagh, it is a misfortune of the most grand that you are a man and I a woman! Otherwise it would be so easy to say to you this.... Me, I am for the moment rich. I could—if you would accord me the permission?—relieve these pressing necessities.... Let me know where a letter will readily find you.... Do not, I entreat you, be angry that I ask this!"