Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/228

218 ready to drop. You don't know how they feel—how they must feel."

"Oh yes, I do. All this has made me older, every hour."

"It has made you more beautiful," said Gaston Probert.

"I don't care. Nothing will induce me to consent to any sacrifice."

"Some sacrifice there must be. Give me time—give me time, I'll manage it. I only wish they hadn't seen you there in the Bois."

"In the Bois?"

"That Marguerite hadn't seen you—with that blackguard. That's the image they can't get over."

"I see you can't either, Gaston. Well, I was there and I was very happy. That's all I can say. You must take me as I am."

"Don't—don't; you infuriate me!" he pleaded, frowning.

Francie had seemed to soften, but she was in a sudden flame again. "Of course I do, and I shall do it again. We are too different. Everything makes you so. You can't give them up—ever, ever. Good-bye—good-bye! That's all I wanted to tell you."

"I'll go and throttle him!" Gaston said, lugubriously.

"Very well, go! Good-bye." She had stepped quickly to the door and had already opened it, vanishing as she had done the last time.