Part 29 (2/2)
”Come, Elise,” he smiled, still blocking the way, ”come; forgive me.”
”Very well, I forgive you,” she said, indifferently, and tried again to pa.s.s.
”Nonsense, my dear,” catching her wrist, ”put a bit of warmth into it-and then prove it by a little stroll with me toward the lake.”
She recoiled at his touch, much as though the snake had stung her, and tried to wrench free, tearing her thin gown and scarring her flesh on the sharp thorns of the j.a.ponica, but making no outcry.
And this encouraged Lotzen; she was playing it very prettily indeed-to yield presently, the weary captive of superior strength. That a woman might be honest in her resistance, he was always slow to credit; but that one should actually be honest, and yet struggle silently rather than permit others to see her with him, was quite beyond his understanding.
He glanced up and down the path; no one was in sight, and the hedge was high-he would make the play a little faster. Hitherto, he had been content to hold her with a sure grip, and let her fling about in futile strivings; now he laughed, and drew her slowly toward him, his eyes fixed significantly upon her flushed face and its moist red lips, parted with the breath-throbs.
”Where shall I kiss you first, little one?” he asked-”on the mouth, or a check, or the gleaming hair?”-He held her back an instant in survey....
”Coy?-too coy to answer-come, then, let it be the lips now, and the others later, by the lake.”
She had ceased to struggle, and her blue eyes were watching the Duke in fascinated steadiness. To him, it signified victory and a willing maid-he took a last glance at the path-then with a cry and a curse he dropped her wrist and sprang back, wringing his hand, the blood gus.h.i.+ng from a ragged wound across its back, where Elise d'Essolde's teeth had sunk into the flesh.
And she, with high-held skirts, was flying toward the Palace.
He sprang in pursuit-and stopped; she would pa.s.s the hedge before he could overtake her; and the open Park was no place for love making of the violent sort-nor with a wound that spurted red. The business would have to bide, for the present.... Over toward the terrace he saw the flutter of a white gown.
”d.a.m.n the little cat!” he muttered; ”she shall pay me well for this.”
Elise d'Essolde, spent with running, her brain in a whirl, her hair dishevelled, weak-kneed and trembling now with the reaction, reached the marble steps near the pergola and sank on the lowest, just as Colonel Moore came springing down them, his eyes toward the j.a.ponica walk, searching for the girl in a white gown whom he was to have met there half an hour ago.
And he would have pa.s.sed, unseeing, had she not spoken.
”Ralph!” she said, ”Ralph!”
He swung around.
”Elise!” he exclaimed, ”I'm sorry to be so late-I was-heaven, child, what has happened?”
The sight of him, and the sound of his voice, had calmed her instantly and put her pulse to normal beating; and now that she was with him, safe and unscathed, the coquette in her could not resist the temptation to torment him.
”Another kept the rendezvous,” she answered, with affected navete.
He pointed to the torn gown.
”And that?” he asked.
”I did it.”
”And the hair?”
”The penalty of an ill-arranged coiffure.”
”And the red mark on your face-blood, it looks like.”
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