Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/357

 how old I am. How you always make me forget it! I mustn't talk like this."

"We shall never, I suppose, talk like this again. You go back to Paris?"

"Yes, soon. I'm glad."

"But it's not hard to you now?"

She seemed to reflect, as though she were anxious to give me an answer accurately true.

"Not very hard now," she said at last, looking full at me. "Not very hard, but very constant, always with me. I love them all, all my folk. But it's always there."

"You mean—What do you mean? The thought of me?"

"Yes, or the thought that somehow I have just missed. I'm not miserable. And I like to dream—to be gorgeous, splendid, wicked in dreams." She gave a laugh and pressed my hand for a moment. "Toté grows pretty," she said. "Don't you think so?"

"Toté was unhappy with me, and I let her go. Yes, she's pretty; she won't be like you, though."

"I'll appeal to you again in five, in ten years," said she, smiling, pleased with my covert praise. "Oh, it's pleasant to see you again," she went on a moment later. "I'm a bad penitent. I wish I could be with you always. No, I am not dreaming now. I mean, just in Forstadt and seeing you."

"A moment ago you were glad to go back to Paris."

"Ah, you assume more ignorance of us than you have. Mayn't I be glad of one thing and wish another?"

"True; and men can do that too."

I felt the old charm of the quick word coming