“I think I must go,” said Yvonne after a litde. “I am leaving Ostend to-morrow and I shall not see you again. You don’t think I am treating you unkindly, Amédée?”
He laughed in his bantering way and lit a cigarette.
“On the contrary, cher ange. It is very good of you to talk to a poor ghost. And you look so pathetic, like a poor little saint with its harp out of tune.”
She rose, anxious to leave him and escape into solitude, where she could think. She still trembled with agitation. In the little cool park, on the other side of the square below, she could be by herself. She dreaded meeting the Canon yet awhile.
“Do give up that vile absinthe,” she said, as a parting softness.
“It is the only consoler that remains to me—sad widower.”
“Well, good-bye, Amédée.”
“Ah—not yet. Since you are the wife of somebody else, I am dying to make love to you.”
He held her by the wrist, laughing at her. But at that moment Yvonne caught sight of the Canon and Mrs. Winstanley, entering upon the terrace. She wrenched her arm away.
“There is my husband.”