Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/326

Rh "Will you not even look at me?" he murmured.

She drew her hand away, and put her mask on, slipping its elastic round her delicate ears.

"How the crowd yells!" she said, impatiently. "Will the Archduchess stay there long, do you think?"

With gentlest audacity and softest skill he had slipped off the mask and had laid it behind him before she had realised what he was doing; his hand had touched her as lightly as though a feather brushed a rose.

She rose in amazed anger, and turned on him coldly.

"M. Della Rocca! how dare you presume so far? Give me my mask at once—"

"No," he said, softly; and he took hold of her hands and drew her towards the back of the box where no eyes could reach them, and knelt down before her as she sat there in the dusky shadow of the dark red draperies.

"Oh, my love—my love!" he murmured; that was all; but his arms stole about her, and