Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/116

 “That it was time you and I had an understanding.”

“I don’t see”

“Wait!” she commanded, with a wave of the hand. “There isn’t anything that you can say that will make me change my mind. Therefore the sooner this talk is over the better for both of us. I’ve told you and you know already that my whole soul is wrapped in the cause of England in this war. I can have nothing but pity and contempt for any Englishman”

She paused, for at this moment, the parlor maid appeared and, gathering up some brasses on Lady Heathcote’s desk, went out of the room.

“I beg that you will be more careful, Doris,” Cyril whispered.

She was silent a moment, and then after a glance at the dining-room door, went on with more restraint.

“Pity and contempt are hardly the kind of ingredients that love can live on. They’ve poisoned mine. It’s dead. I don’t want to see you again,” she finished coldly—“ever. I hope you understand.”

He bowed his head and for a moment made no reply.

“I asked” he said slowly, “I hoped—that you would be willin’ to trust me—that you’d wait until I was able to speak to you—to explain the—the things you do not understand.”

“Unfortunately,” she put in distinctly, “there is nothing that I do not understand. I know—God help you!—what you are. I have done what I can to save you from the fate you’re courting—and I shall still do so, for the sake of—of what once was—was between us. But I do not want to see you again. I have put you out of my life—completely—as though you never had been in it. And now,” she rose, “will you let me go?”