“I cannot present the petition,” he answered.
Jealousy, fear, anger, swept the passion out of her eyes. “You are afraid?” she demanded, with biting scorn.
“Yes, I am afraid,” he assented, and if the Comtesse had not lost her self-control she must have detected the delicate irony in his grave bow.
“Ah!” she stepped back. “Ah! If Denise had asked you, you would have consented.”
“No,” he corrected with a freezing pride. “I would not permit the Marquise de Beau Séjour even to make the request.”
The answer surprised and delighted her. Yet, woman though she was, the Comtesse failed to read what lay behind it, and in her determination to win she now made a stupid mistake. “I would save you, André,” she whispered, “because—” she laid a jewelled hand on his sleeve and dropped her eyes slowly. “They will ruin you unless you consent.”
Why break with the past, the present, and the future? André hesitated, but only for a moment.
“I cannot present the petition,” he answered curtly.
“Very well,” she shrugged her shoulders in disdainful wrath. “Very well. I shall not ask you a second time. You understand; so do I.”
“Adieu!” he said, raising her fingers, but she snatched them back and swept him a cold curtsey.