Her attitude began to anger me,
for I saw that she was not only resisting me, but resisting herself.
In her heart the insidious canker of doubt persisted. She knew - or
should have known - that it no longer should have any place there,
yet obstinately she refrained from plucking it out. There was that
wager. But for that same obstinacy she must have realized the reason
of my arguments, the irrefutable logic of my payment. She denied me,
and in denying me she denied herself, for that she had loved me she
had herself told me, and that she could love me again I was assured,
if she would but see the thing in the light of reason and of justice.
"Roxalanne, I did not come to Lavedan to say 'Good-bye' to you. I
seek from you a welcome, not a dismissal."
"Yet my dismissal is all that I can give. Will you not take my hand?
May we not part in friendly spirit?"
"No, we may not; for we do not part at all."
It was as the steel of my determination striking upon the flint of
hers. She looked up to my face for an instant; she raised her
eyebrows in deprecation; she sighed, shrugged one shoulder, and,
turning on her heel, moved towards the door.
"Anatole shall bring you refreshment ere you go," she said in a very
polite and formal voice.
Then I played my last card. Was it for nothing that I had flung
away my wealth? If she would not give herself, by God, I would
compel her to sell herself. And I took no shame in doing it, for by
doing it I was saving her and saving myself from a life of
unhappiness.
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