"I can trust my friend, and--I do not propose to share you with him,"

he said brutally.

She winced as if he had struck her, and hid her face in her hands with

a low cry.

His fingers gripped her shoulder cruelly. "You will do as I wish?" The

words were a question, but the intonation was a command.

"I have no choice," she murmured faintly.

His hands dropped to his sides and he turned to leave the room, but she

caught his arm. "Monseigneur! Have you no pity? Will you not spare me

this ordeal?"

He made a gesture of refusal. "You exaggerate," he said impatiently,

brushing her hand from his arm.

"If you will be merciful this once----." she pleaded breathlessly, but

he cut her short with a fierce oath. "If?" he echoed. "Do you make

bargains with me? Have you so much yet to learn?"

She looked at him with a little weary sigh. The changing mood that she

had set herself to watch for had come upon him suddenly and found her

unprepared. The gentleness of the morning had vanished and he had

reverted to the tyrannical, arbitrary despot of two months ago. She

knew that it was her own fault. She knew him well enough to know that

he was intolerant of any interference with his wishes. She had learned

the futility of setting her determination against his. There was one

master in his camp, whose orders, however difficult, must be obeyed.

His attention had concentrated on a broken fingernail, and he turned to

the dressing-table for a knife. She followed him with her eyes and

watched him carefully trimming the nail. She had often, amongst the

many things that puzzled her, wondered at the fastidious care he took

of his well-manicured hands. The light of the lamp fell full on his

face, and there was a dull ache in her heart as she looked at him. He

demanded implicit obedience, and only a few hours before she had made

up her mind to unreserved submission, and she had broken down at the

first test. The proof of her obedience was a hard one, from which she

shrank, but it was harder far to see the look of anger she had provoked

on the face of the man she loved. For two months of wild happiness it

had been absent, the black scowl she had learned to dread had not been

directed at her, and the fierce eyes had looked at her with only

kindness or amusement shining in their dark depths. Anything could be

borne but a continuance of his displeasure. No sacrifice was too great

to gain his forgiveness. She could not bear his anger. She longed so

desperately for happiness, and she loved him so passionately, so

utterly, that she was content to give up everything to his will. If she

could only get back the man of the last few weeks, if she had not

angered him too far. She was at his feet, tamed thoroughly at last, all

her proud, angry self-will swamped in the love that was consuming her

with an intensity that was an agony. Love was a bitter pain, a torment

that was almost unendurable, a happiness that mocked her with its

hollowness, a misery that tortured her with visions of what might have

been. She went to him slowly, and he turned to her abruptly.




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