"Mademoiselle!" I exclaimed.
But even as I spoke, she turned, and sweeping aside her gown that it might
not touch me, she moved rapidly towards the steps we had just descended.
Full of remorse, I sprang after her.
"Mademoiselle! Hear me," I cried, and put forth my hand to stay her.
Thereat she wheeled round and faced me, a blaze of fury in her grey eyes.
"Dare not to touch me," she panted. "You thief, you hound!"
I recoiled, and, like one turned to stone, I stood and watched her mount
the steps, my feelings swaying violently between anger and sorrow. Then my
eye fell upon Montr?sor standing on the topmost step, and on his face there
was a sneering, insolent smile which told me that he had heard the epithets
she had bestowed upon me.
Albeit I sought that day another interview with Yvonne, I did not gain it,
and so I was forced to sun myself in solitude upon the terrace. But I
cherished for my consolation that broken sentence of hers, whereby I read
that the coldness which she had evinced for me before I left Canaples had
only been assumed.
And presently as I recalled what talks we had had, and one in particular
from which it now appeared to me that her coldness had sprung, a light
seemed suddenly to break upon my mind, as perchance it hath long ago broken
upon the minds of those who may happen upon these pages, and whose wits in
matters amorous are of a keener temper than were mine.
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