Free The Lion's Skin by Rafael Sabatini Page B

that I had judged you to be an exceptional woman?"
    "Exceptionally foolish, not a doubt."
    "Exceptionally beautiful; exceptionally admirable," he corrected.
    "A clumsy compliment, devoid of wit!"
    "When we grow truthful, it may be forgiven us if we fall short of wit."
    "That were an argument in favor of avoiding truth."
    "Were it necessary," said he. "For truth is seldom so intrusive as to need avoiding. But we are straying. There was a score upon which you were inquisitive, you said; from which I take it that
you sought knowledge at my hands. Pray seek it; I am a well of knowledge."
    "I desired to know——Nay, but I have asked you already. I desired to know did you deem me a very pitiful little fool?"
    They had reached the privet hedge, and turned. They paused now before resuming their walk. He paused, also, before replying. Then:
    "I should judge you wise in most things," he answered slowly, critically. "But in the matter to which I owe the blessing of having served you, I do not think you wise. Did you—do you love
Lord Rotherby?"
    "What if so?"
    "After what you have learned, I should account you still less wise."
    "You are impertinent, sir," she reproved him.
    "Nay, most pertinent. Did you not ask me to sit in judgment upon this matter? And unless you confess to me, how am I to absolve you?"
    "I did not crave your absolution. You take too much upon yourself."
    "So said Lord Rotherby. You seem to have something in common when all is said."
    She bit her lip in chagrin. They paced in silence to the lawn's end, and turned again. Then: "You treat me like a fool," she reproved him.
    "How is that possible, when, already I think I love you."
    She started from him, and stared at him for a long moment. "You insult me!" she cried angrily, conceiving that she understood his mind. "Do you think that because I may have committed a folly I
have forfeited all claim to be respected—that I am a subject for insolent speeches?"
    "You are illogical," said Mr. Caryll, the imperturbable. "I have told you that I love you. Should I insult the woman I have said I love?"
    "You love me?" She looked at him, her face very white in the white moonlight, her lips parted, a kindling anger in her eyes. "Are you mad?"
    "I a'n't sure. There have been moments when I have almost feared it. This is not one of them."
    "You wish me to think you serious?" She laughed a thought stridently in her indignation. "I have known you just four hours," said she.
    "Precisely the time I think I have loved you."
    "You think?" she echoed scornfully. "Oh, you make that reservation! You are not quite sure?"
    "Can we be sure of anything?" he deprecated.
    "Of some things," she answered icily. "And I am sure of one—that I am beginning to understand you."
    "I envy you. Since that is so, help me—of your charity!—to understand myself."
    "Then understand yourself for an impudent, fleering coxcomb," she flung at him, and turned to leave him.
    "That is not explanation," said Mr. Caryll thoughtfully. "It is mere abuse."
    "What else do you deserve?" she asked him over her shoulder. "That you should have dared!" she withered him.
    "To love you quite so suddenly?" he inquired, and misquoted: "'Whoever loved at all, that loved not at first sight?' Hortensia!"
    "You have not the right to my name, sir."
    "Yet I offer you the right to mine," he answered, with humble reproach.
    "You shall be punished," she promised him, and in high dudgeon left him.
    "Punished? Oh, cruel! Can you then be—
    "'Unsoft to him who's smooth to thee?
    Tigers and bears, I've heard some say,
    For proffered love will love repay.'"
    But she was gone. He looked up at the moon, and took it into his confidence to reproach it. "'Twas your white face beglamored me," he told it aloud. "See, how execrable a beginning I've made,
and, therefore, how excellent!" And he laughed, but entirely without mirth.
    He remained pacing in the moonlight, very thoughtful, and, for once, it seemed, not at all amused. His life