And before the Frenchman could utter a word she turned from him and walked swiftly away.
He did not attempt to follow her. This sudden and unexpected onslaught of his victim had found him quite unprepared, and he gazed after her with eyes full of perplexity and amazement. Then he, too, turned and walked away. He strolled slowly through the park in the direction of the Serpentine; having reached it, he paused on one of the bridges, leant over the parapet, and watched the swans. He felt in his pocket, threw them some broken biscuits, and watched them eat.
While so watching, he soliloquised. ‘As I suspected,’ he murmured, ‘she still possesses a spirit and a temper—-eh bien, it is for me to manage both. If this little piece of paper (touching the certificate) were genuine, if that spirited creature were indeed my wife, I should find my work easy. The law would give her to me, and there would be an end to the whole matter. I would place her again upon the stage; she would make me a rich man, while I could pursue my dream, mount rapidly up the ladder of fame, become the idol of mankind, and make my name immortal. But, alas! that cannot be. The charming creature detests me, and means to resist me. I dare not appeal to the law, for it would require more proofs of my sagacity than my charming Madeline does. Parbleu! what must I do now?’
He ran his thin fingers through his long hair; he gazed again meditatively at the water; he threw some more biscuits to the swans. Suddenly the perplexed look passed away from his face, which lit up into positive ecstasy.
‘The husband! 5 he cried. ‘Mon Dieu! but she adores the husband even more cordially than she detests me. Let me think of him; let my plans involve him, and my success is tolerably sure.’
CHAPTER XXXI.—IN THE ROW.
While Gavrolles, in a grotesque attitude, was soliloquising and feeding the swans, Madeline was walking along the pavement of the principal street in Knightsbridge. Her eyes rested upon the gaily decked shop windows and the busy crowd about her, but her thoughts were still with the man whom she had just left. Already she repented of her madness in having defied him. Once or twice she paused with the intention of returning to him and asking for pity, but her resolutions were no sooner made than conquered; to expect mercy from that man was like looking for water to flow from a stone.
She paused and looked blankly in at a shop window; as she did so she felt herself touched lightly and timidly on the arm; and on looking down she found that she had been accosted by a flower girl; a pale, little creature, clad in miserable rags, with a face pinched and pallid from starvation, who timidly held forth a bunch of half-withered violets. Madeline looked down, and her eyes filled with tears; not with sorrow for the child—they were tears of self-pity—for as she pressed some silver into the child’s hand, she thought, ‘What would I give to change places with you to-day?’