Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/276

 "I am that," he declared. "And at your service, madame."

She leaned easily back in her chair, but with a swift, frightened look around the terrace. It seemed that they were unremarked; the others who lingered thereabouts were preoccupied with their own affairs. And the fact encouraged her.

She faced him again, joining her hands before her on the table; and O'Rourke could see that she was trembling as with an excess of emotion—with fear, perhaps, or with some overpowering anxiety, or with a passion which he could not, in the nature of things, comprehend, but which had power to shake her like a reed in the wind.

"Monsieur—" she began again.

He approached more nearly, and bore himself with a deference which he hoped would be reassuring. "Madame," he questioned, "is there anything that I can do for ye?"

"Ah, monsieur, there is so much—if you can—if you only will!"

The hands were unclasped and extended in appeal; and they were very dainty and white, and moving with the helplessness they indicated. O'Rourke dared to catch one of them gently in his broad palm; with a quick movement he carried it to his lips, and released it.

"Monsieur!"

He was crushed by the reproach in her eyes. "But, madame," he pleaded humbly, "we are too deep in shadow to have been seen! And, sure, I couldn't help it—though, faith, ye must believe 'twas with all the respect in the world—"

She cut him short with an impatient movement. "I forgive," she told him. "I—I misunderstood. Pardon me, monsieur. But—I have so little time—"