Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/214

 He turned his head and looked at her.

"I don't know," he said.

"Very well. I like uncertainty. We will hope." He went out. I stood facing her for a moment.

"Well?" said she, looking in my eyes, and seeming to challenge an expression of opinion.

"You are pleased with yourself?"

"Yes."

"You have done some mischief."

"How much?"

"I don't know. But you love uncertainty."

"True, true. And you seem to think that I love candour."

"Don't you?"

"I think that I love everything and everybody in the world except you."

I laughed again. I knew that I had triumphed.

"Behold your decision," I cried, "and the hairdresser still waits!"

She did not answer me. She stood there smiling. I took her hand and kissed it with much and even affected gallantry. Then I went and paid a like attention to Madame Briande. As the little woman made her curtsey she turned alarmed and troubled eyes up to me.

"Oh, mon Dieu!" she murmured.

"Till to-night," smiled Coralie.