“And that is——?”
“By letting Aubray Zarka be your protector.”
She met him with an innocent trick of his own subtlety. “Why, surely, Count, I hope I may expect you to defend me from a design which you say threatens my life. You cannot think me so ungenerous as to suppose you would refuse.”
She was not taking it quite as he wished. “I want you,” he urged, “to give me the right to protect you.”
Her face clouded. “I cannot reverse the answer I gave you yesterday,” she said firmly.
At last they were fairly in open conflict. He pointed to where D’Alquen was standing. “You prefer that to me; death to love?” he said, with a gleam of thwarted passion in his eyes.
“Love?” she retorted. “I have told you love is out of the question.”
“And yet,” he rejoined, “it is well to love the man who can protect you.”
His urgency and want of consideration provoked her. “Am I so helpless?” she said.
“More than you fancy,” he returned. “Perhaps, you think,” he continued viciously, “this dashing young Lieutenant can protect you. A fool’s paradise, indeed! The whole of his regiment would not keep that man’s knife or bullet from your heart were he minded to drive it there. You do not know the savage patience and determination of these men. And your lover will doubtless share your fate.”