Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/299

 "To define the situation."

"Did it need definition?"

"I thought so half an hour ago."

"Ah, well, the evening has been a strange one, hasn't it?"

"Let's walk down to the river through the woods," said I. "I'll put you across to Waldenweiter."

He acquiesced, and I put my arm through his. Presently he said in a low voice:

"The dance, the wine, the night."

"Yes, yes, I know," I cried. "My God, I knew even when I spoke to her. She saw that a brute asked her, not a man."

"Perhaps, perhaps not; they don't see everything. She shrank from you?"

"The tears were very ready."

"Ah, those tears! Heavens, why have we no such appeals? What matter, though? You don't love her."

"Do you want me to call myself a brute again? Wetter, any other girl would have been free to tell me that I was a brute."

"Why, no. No man is free even to tell you that you're a fool, sire. The divinity hedges you."

I laughed shortly and bitterly. What he said was true enough.

"There is, however, nothing to prevent you from seeing these things for yourself, just as though you were one of the rest of us," he pursued. "Ah, here's the river. You'll row me across?" "Yes. Get into the boat there."

We got in, and I pulled out into mid-stream. It was almost daylight now, but there was still a grayness in the atmosphere that exactly matched the tint