“True,” she sighed. “Sometimes for an hour or so I manage to forget, but sooner or later the sorrow that overshadows my life recurs to me in all its hideous reality, and when I am alone it overwhelms me. To the world I am compelled to appear chic, happy, and thoughtless. Few, indeed, who know me are aware that my feigned laughter is but a bitter wail of lamentation, that beneath my smile lies a broken heart.”
“And your lover? Was he faithless? What of him?”
“What of him!” she gasped hoarsely, rising from the seat with her hands clenched. “I—I know nothing of him,” she added, with a strange look in her eyes.
She laughed a hollow laugh, and as she drew on her long suède gloves, the bells of San Vicente announced the noon.
“I have been out too long already,” she added, hurriedly rising. “We must part.”
“May I not accompany you towards your home?” I asked.
“No, m’sieur,” she answered firmly, holding out her hand.
“And when shall we resume our chat?” I asked.
She hesitated, gazing away to the misty cliffs across the bay. I half feared she would refuse to meet me again.
“If you are not bored by my wretchedness and bad temper,” she said at last, with a sad smile, “I will be here to-morrow morning, at eleven.”