“Monsieur de Bardelys, you have kept your promise nobly. Will you ask no payment?”
“No, mademoiselle,” I answered very softly; “I can take no payment.”
Her eyes were lifted for a second. Their blue depths seemed dim. Then they fell again.
“Oh, why will you not help me?” she burst out, to add more softly: “I shall never be happy without you!”
“You mean?” I gasped, retracing a step, and flinging my hat in a corner.
“That I love you, Marcel--that I want you!”
“And you can forgive--you can forgive?” I cried, as I caught her.
Her answer was a laugh that bespoke her scorn of everything--of everything save us two, of everything save our love. That and the pout of her red lips was her answer. And if the temptation of those lips--But there! I grow indiscreet.
“Monseigneur?” came his answer through the open window.
“Bid those knaves dismount and unsaddle.”
End of Project Gutenberg's Bardelys the Magnificent, by Rafael Sabatini