“Mademoiselle,” I cried, more passionately, perhaps, than was fitting, “do not misunderstand. The confiscation does not apply at once, of course, and you are still absolute mistress here. If your brother be proved innocent, the decree of confiscation may be revoked. So it will now be held in suspension. You will, I am sure, permit me to go through the form of visiting your house, to convince me, as the Governor’s emissary, that Monsieur le Fevre is not there. Then I will return to the village and see to it that my men shall cause you no annoyance or embarrassment. I dare not ask you to pity me for the duty that has been put upon me.”
As I spoke I had been watching her face, without seeming to think of anything but my own words. First the colour returned to cheek and lips; then a wild anger was lighted in the great green eyes—anger with a fear and appeal behind it. Then a resolved look—and I knew that she would force herself to play out the game, setting her brother’s interest before all else. And then, last of all, a most fleeting, elusive look of triumph at the back of her eyes and at the bow of her lips, for the indeterminable fraction of a second. I took note of this with some anxiety. Could it be possible that she felt sure of her power over me? Could it be possible that she had, at all, any hold upon me? No, she was too confident. She interested me amazingly. She seemed to me the most beautiful thing that could have ever existed. But I was not in love, and would not be swerved from my duty even if I were. Yet all this was flashed instantaneously through my brain—she was speaking—and I was yielding.
“You are a generous enemy, a chivalrous enemy, monsieur,” she murmured, in a low, earnest, slightly strained voice. Then she recovered her lightness. “I am almost your prisoner, in a sense, am I not? A suspect, certainly. If I accept your leniency, and profit by your permission to stay here under my confiscated roof, do not make me die under this weight of favour. Be my guest and let me feel that I am not the only one in debt.”
Was this the same woman, this half-mocking, all-irresistible creature, she whom I had seen grey-faced with hopeless trouble not three minutes before? Said I to myself, “If I put my wits or my heart against hers it is all up with me. Blank truth is my only hope.” Aloud I said, “I will be your guest, mademoiselle, though the debt in which I so overwhelm myself is one from which I can never again get free.”
For this acquiescence my reward was just a look of brilliancy that made me catch my breath with pleasure. With a gesture that bade me to her side she turned and moved slowly up the path, between the shining copiousness of roses.
“‘It is I who must ask forgiveness,’ she said softly, holding out her hand” (page 192).
“I will send a servant with your orderly to the inn, monsieur,” she said, “to fetch your things. Our old walls will be glad to shelter again a soldier’s uniform, even if the colour of it be something strange to them.”
“Almost you tempt me to wish that I had been born to the white uniform,” I answered, in a daze with the nearness of her, the witchery of her, the nameless charm of her movement, the subtle intoxication of her voice.
“Almost you tempt me to regret,” she retorted, with gracious raillery, “that the men of your cold and stubborn north cannot be moved to change by a woman’s arguments.”