I looked at her.  Strange and terrible as her experiences and sufferings had been, she had lost little of her beauty.  Her face was rendered only the more delicate by its pallor.  Her white and perfect body, only half seen in the half-darkness, conveyed a sense of the purest beauty with no hint of immodesty.

But I was moved not by what I saw, but by what I knew.  I had admired her always as Le Mire; but her bravery, her hardihood, her sympathy for others under circumstances when any other woman would have been thinking only of herself—­had these awakened in my breast a feeling stronger than admiration?

I did not know.  But my voice trembled a little as I said:  “I need not answer you, Desiree.  I repeat that there is nothing to forgive.  You sought revenge, then sacrificed it; but still revenge is yours.”

She looked at me for a moment in silence, then said slowly:  “I do not understand you.”

For reply I took her hand in my own from where it lay idly on my knee, and, carrying it to my lips, pressed a long kiss on the top of each of the slender white fingers.  Then I held the hand tight between both of mine as I asked simply, looking into her eyes: 

“Do you understand me now?”

Another silence.

“My revenge,” she breathed.

I nodded and again pressed her hand to my lips.

“Yes, Desiree.  We are not children.  I think we know what we mean.  But you have not told me.  Did you mean what you said that day on the mountain?”

“Ah, I thought that was a play!” she murmured.

“Tell me!  Did you mean it?”

“I never confess the same sin twice, my friend.”

“Desiree, did you mean it?”

Then suddenly, with the rapidity of lightning, her manner changed.  She bent toward me with parted lips and looked straight into my eyes.  There was passion in the gaze; but when she spoke her voice was quite even and so low I scarcely heard.

“Paul,” she said, “I shall not again say I love you.  Such words should not be wasted.  Not now, perhaps; but that is because we are where we are.  And if we should return?

“You have said that nothing is worth a serious word to you; and you are right.  You are too cynical; things are bitter in your mouth, and doubly so when they leave it.  Just now you are amusing yourself by pretending to care for me.  Perhaps you do not know it, but you are.  Search your heart, my friend, and tell me—­do you want my love?”

Well, there was no need to search my heart, she had laid it open.  I hated myself then; and I turned away, unable to meet her eyes, as I said: 

“Bon Dieu!” she cried.  “That is an ugly speech, monsieur!” And she laughed aloud.

“But we must not awaken Harry,” she continued with sudden softness.  “What a boy he is—­and what a man!  Ah, he knows what it is to love!”

That topic suited me little better, but I followed her.  We talked of Harry, Le Mire with an amount of enthusiasm that surprised me.  Suddenly she stopped abruptly and announced that she was hungry.