Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/296

 Mademoiselle Ludérac glanced at her from her book. 'I met her. Just now.'

'You are indeed fortunate in your meetings, Marthe; but too secretive. I should have asked you for news of our charming friend had I known you so favoured,' said Madame de Lamouderie, while the snake-like smile curled up towards her nostril.

Poor little Cécile Léonore of the beech forest; to what vast distances was she not sunken! Graham could well interpret the glassy stare of the great black eyes. Since they had last met, since he had given her that farewell kiss, the very firmament above her had altered and every star was now against her. He looked at her with a quelling eye as though he faced a tigress. He even dared to smile at her. 'Be good this morning,' he said, 'and we shall make great strides.' But it was with effrontery he spoke, for how could she fail to read his gaze? 'Yes; I am changed to you,' was what it said. 'Yes, she has changed me. Because of her I now know you to be false. And I am desperate with love and you must bear with it that it should be so, since we understand desperation in love, you and I.'

And even as these words passed through his mind he saw that they liberated him. She read him. He could not conceal himself from her. So let him at last drink to his fill of the longed-for beauty. He turned his eyes from Madame de Lamouderie and looked deliberately at Mademoiselle Ludérac and her face as she sat in profile to him was at last his own. He saw her. He saw her to his utmost need. The daffodil was within