Something in his voice forced her to look at him, and her eyes shone like flat pieces of opalescent glass so contracted were the pupils, but they widened even as she looked into the steadfast grey eyes, and her mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile.
Good heavens, why didn't he take her in his arms and smother her up against his heart, or put a bag over her head, or failing the bag, put his hand before her eyes?
What fools some men can be with the woman they love within their reach.
But instead he left her, hurt and humiliated and desolate, to sit half crouched by herself, whilst her eyes, against all striving, slowly veered round to the shrub.
He held her hand, it is true, whilst he talked, but what good is _that_ to a frightened woman whose heart is crying for protection, and whose body is clamouring to be forced into submission?
"Dear," he said as Leonie stared at the poinsettia bush, "I am on the track at last, and in a very little time shall know exactly what happened to you all those years ago. There is only one link missing, and that I shall surely find, as I find everything when I set my mind to it. Then the whole thing will be cleared up, and this mysterious cloud lifted from you. Look at me, dear!" Leonie turned and looked at him blankly, and as he continued speaking, slowly, and as though against her will, turned her eyes back to the poinsettia bush. "I want you now in your distress. I want you in the storm as well as in the sunshine, dear; I love to see you smile, it would be heaven to _make_ you smile. Marry me, beloved, _now_. Dear, won't you? Let me lift the cloud from my _wife_. Oh! Leonie, think of it--my _wife_!"
Leonie answered mechanically, as though she were repeating a lesson and had not heard one word of the man's pleading.
"What have you found out? And what is missing?"
"I have found the woman who was your ayah."
Leonie pulled her hands away, and pushing the hair off her forehead, sat quite still listening, but not hearing the music as it floated through the night air, watching without seeing the couples as they strolled about the grounds.
And then she answered, but without any real interest, although very distinctly, shivering slightly as the man put the wrap over her bare shoulders.