Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/211

Rh She avoided all notice of his words as she gave him her adieu, speakings as she had hitherto done, in French.

He bowed over her hand, but he held it still.

"And to-morrow I may have permission to return, and seek to say all for which I have no words to-night? The debt that you disclaim must, at least, be sufficient bond between as for us not to part as strangers?"

Looking upward he saw a certain hesitation upon her face; her eyes were suddenly darkened by a shadow it were hard to describe, and she was silent. Chivalrous in his courtesy to women, pride was too strong in him for him to sue where he was repulsed, to entreat where he was undesired. He released her, and raised his head.

"It is not for me to force my presence on you. Farewell, then, and take, once for all, my gratitude for a debt that it has pleasured you to embitter." The words were proud, but they were also pained; they were the terse, uustudied phrases of a man who was wounded, but who could not be lowered, and would not be angered; they served him better, and touched her more keenly, than more servile or more honeyed utterances would have done. She smiled