"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.