She did not answer.
‘Because if you do you will let me tell my tale. Say no, but once more, Mademoiselle—I am only human—and I go. And you will repent it all your life.’
I had done better had I taken that tone from the beginning. She winced, her head dropped, she seemed to grow smaller. All in a moment, as it were, her pride collapsed.
‘I will hear you,’ she murmured.
‘Then we will ride on, if you please,’ I said keeping the advantage I had gained. ‘You need not fear. Your brother will follow.’
I caught hold of her rein and turned her horse, and she suffered it without demur; and in a moment we were pacing side by side, with the long straight road before us. At the end where it topped the hill, I could see the finger-post, two faint black lines against the sky. When we reached that—involuntarily I checked my horse and made it move more slowly.
‘Well, sir?’ she said impatiently. And her figure shook as with cold.
‘It is a tale I desire to tell you, Mademoiselle,’ I answered. ‘Perhaps I may seem to begin a long way off, but before I end I promise to interest you. Two months ago there was living in Paris a man—perhaps a bad man—at any rate, by common report a hard man; a man with a peculiar reputation.’
She turned on me suddenly, her eyes gleaming through her mask.
‘Oh, Monsieur, spare me this!’ she said, quietly scornful. ‘I will take it for granted.’