The Abbess Of Vlaye

by Stanley John Weyman

Though she raised her eyebrows contemptuously, a faint tinge of colour crept into her face.

"I thought," she replied, "that the end was to save this little fool who is too weak to save herself!"

"But you?"

"Oh, for me?" contemptuously. "Take no heed of me. I am of other stuff, and can manage my own affairs."

"You think so," he retorted. "But the Captain of Vlaye, he, too, is of other stuff."

"Do you fancy I am afraid of M. de Vlaye?" she answered. And her eyes flashed scorn on him. "You may be! You should be!" with a glance which marked his deformity and stabbed the sense of it deep into his heart. "How should you be otherwise, seeing that in no circumstances could you be a match for him! But I? I say again that I am of other stuff."

"All the same," he muttered darkly, "I would not go on----"

"Would not go on?" she retorted in mockery. "Not with your sweet Countess in danger? Not with the dear light of your eyes in Vlaye's arms? Not go on? Oh, brave lover! Oh, brave man! Not go on, and your Countess, your pretty Countess----"

"Be silent!" he cried. She stung him to rage.

"Ah! We go back then?"