Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/531

 anxious. Can I help you? George, I would do anything in the world for you. Are you not dear to me as my own child, almost?"

He tried to laugh it off, but his mirth was forced and hollow.

"I have so many preparations to make. There are so many trifles to be thought of, even in leaving a place like this, that really, madame, I was only waiting here for a while to remember if I had forgotten anything."

She laid her hand on his arm, as she had laid it long ago at the masked ball, and perhaps the gesture brought back that time to both.

"Even if you can blind Cerise," she said, "you cannot deceive me. And Cerise, poor child, is crying her eyes out by herself; miserable, utterly miserable, as if you had gone away from her for ever. But it is no question now of my daughter; it is a question of yourself, George. You are unhappy, I tell you. I saw it as soon as I came here. And I have been watching ever since you left the house, till it should be quite dark, to come and speak to you before you go, and ask for the confidence that Heaven only knows how fully I, of all people, deserve."

There was a world of suppressed feeling in her voice while she spoke the last sentence, but he marked it not. He was thinking of Cerise. "Miserable," said her mother, "utterly miserable, as if he had gone away from her for ever." Then it was for Florian she was grieving, of course. Bah! he had known it all through. Of what use was it thus to add proof to proof—to pile disgrace upon disgrace? It irritated him, and he answered abruptly—

"You must excuse me, madame; this is no time for explanations, even were any necessary, and I have already loitered here too long."

She placed herself directly in his path, standing with her hands clasped, as was her habit when moved by any unusual agitation.

"If you had gone away at once," said she, "I was prepared to follow you. I have watched you from the moment you crossed the threshold. Am I blind? Am I a young inexperienced girl, who has never felt, never suffered, to be imposed on by a haughty bearing and a forced smile?