Part 17 (1/2)
”Why don't you praise me?” the woh”--her accents were faintly scoffing--”I never dreamed _you_ would not afterward be able to--” Her words leaped into a new channel ”What can the child want? _Est-ce-qu'elle aiht explain--”
An expletive s more of Montmartre than of the Boulevard Capucines, fell from the noblear ”It is not so--it won't explain anything,” he returned violently ”Didn't I once have it from her own lips that, at least, she was not--” He stopped ”_Mon Dieu!_ That contingency--”
Suddenly she again laughed ”Delicious!”
”What?”
”Nothing My own thoughts By the hat has become of the man we picked up froesture ”He's down below--a the stokers Why do you ask?”
”It is natural, I suppose, to take a faint interest in a poor fisherman you've almost drowned”
”Not I!” Brutally
”No?” A smatical, played around her lips ”How droll!”
”Droll?”
”Heartless, then But you great nobles are that, a little, eh, _ed and returned quickly to that othersubject
”_Elle va m'epouser!_” he exclaimed violently ”I will stake my life on it She will; she must!”
”Must!” The woirl?”
”We're not at the finis yet!” An ugly crispness was manifest in his tones ”There are ports and priests a-plenty, and this voyage is apt to be a long one, unless she consents--”
”Charto offer? _Diable_! One would think I was a beggar, not--anant? Your sex,” with a suspicion of a sneer, ”have not always found iven my heart before, you will say! But never as now! For she is a witch, like those that coa--to steal, alike, the souls of fisherman and prince” He paused; then went on one--allowed myself to be dismissed as a boy from school 'I have played with you; you have aer do so Adieu!' So she would have said to me, if not in words, by irily ”_Tant s'en faut_! I, too, shall have soesture, threw his cigar into the sea and walked off
”How tiresome!” But the words fell from the woman's lips uneasily She stretched her lithe forht Then she, too, disappeared Mr Heatherbloom stood motionless She kneho he was and yet she had not revealed his secret to the prince Because she deemed him but a pawn, paltry, inconsequential? Because she wished to save the hot-headed noble a deed of violence--a crime, even--if he should learn?
The reason mattered little In Mr Heatherbloom's mind his excellency's last words--all they portended--excluded now consideration of all else
He gazed uncertainly in the direction the nobleone; suddenly started to follow, stealthily, cautiously, when another person approached Mr Heatherbloom would have drawn back, but it was too late--he was seen His absence fro for hiiant fore arht of his delinquent helper The ured ill for Mr Heatherbloom
The latter knehat he had to expect--that no mercy would be shown hi about for so hich to defend himself
CHAPTER XVI
THE DESPOT
Prince Boris, upon leaving Sonia Turgeinov, ascended to the officers'