Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/128

116 about his passion, I could not doubt that it was life and death to him. Justification he had none; excuse I found in my heart for him, for it struck me—coming over me in a strange sudden revelation as I sat and looked at him—that had he given such love to the duchess, the gay little lady would have been marvelously embarrassed. It was hers to dwell in a radiant mid-ether, neither to mount to heaver nor descend to hell. And in one of theses two must dwell such feelings as the dukes’s.

He roused himself, and leaning forward spoke to me again:

“You’ve lived in the same house with her and talked to her. You swear you don’t love her? What? Has Elsa’s little figure come between?”

His tone was full of scorn. He seemed angry with me, not for presuming to love his wife (nay, he would not believe that), but for being so blind as not to love Marie.

“I didn’t love her!” I answered, with a frown on my face and slow words.

“You have never felt attracted to her?”

I did not answer that question. I sat frowning in silence till the duke spoke again, in a low hoarse whisper:

“And she? What says she to you?”

I looked up with a start, and met his searching wrathful gaze. I shook my head; his question was new to me—new and disturbing.

“I don’t know,” said I; and on that we sat in silence for many moments.

Then he rose abruptly and stood beside me.