Part 11 (2/2)
There was another instant's silence as they walked.
”Ah, I think I understand,” she said. And they walked into the blaze of the city. She paused for a moment.
”Will you pardon me for asking things like that? I don't usually.... But in the dusk I seem to be another person....”
”No. In the light we are other persons.”
”Ah,” she smiled understandingly. ”You are going to your s.h.i.+p now?”
There was a finality in her voice. It was more an affirmation than a question.
”Madame,” Shane said, ”will you please let me see you to your door?”
She looked at him for an intense second, and a little cloud of--was it fear?--flitted across her face.
”Madame, there are thieves and villains of all kinds abroad. You have had one experience. Please let me protect you from a possible second.”
”If you wish.” She smiled. He called a carriage.
In the light she was a different person. Along the sea-sh.o.r.e walking in the dusk, she was a troubled phantom, a thing of beauty, but without flesh, without the trappings of clothes--as if a spirit had been imprisoned in cold white statuary. But now she was a beautiful woman, gravely gay, a woman of the world, not of the great world, perhaps, and not of the half-world--just a woman aware of and experienced in life.
And poised.
”You are English?”
”Not English. Irish.”
Poised she was, but she was like a player playing a game, and the breaks against her. He knew the smile. He had seen it often on Alan Donn's face, playing in some of the great t.i.tle matches. Four holes to go, and he must better par. It's all right, the smile said; there's nothing wrong. But in Alan Donn's was the glint of a naked knife, and in this woman's eyes, down deep, veiled, but ill concealed, was appeal.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
They stopped at her house. He helped her out.
”_Adieu, Monsieur_. And again a thousand thanks.”
”_C'etait un vrai plaisir!_”
”Monsieur!”
”Madame!”
The cabman looked surprised when ordered to return. He turned and regarded his fare with amazement.
”_Quai de la Fraternite_,” I said.
”_Hup, alors!_” The cabby shrugged his shoulders. And they trotted ploddingly through the dusk of Pontius Pilate to the burning cloud which was Ma.r.s.eilles....
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