Still, she
vaguely felt pity for this man; she equally vaguely desired to serve
him.
"Wait, M. Victor!" she said, as he closed the door of her carriage. "I
accepted your chessmen last night, but you are very certain that it is
impossible I can retain them on such terms."
A shadow darkened his face.
"Let your dogs break them then, madame. They shall not come back to me."
"You mistake--I did not mean that I would send them back. I simply
desire to offer you some equivalent for them. There must be something
that you wish for?--something which would be acceptable to you in the
life you lead?"
"I have already named the only thing I desire."
He had been solicitous to remember and sustain the enormous difference
in their social degrees; but at the offer of her gifts, of her
patronage, of her recompense, the pride of his old life rose up to meet
her own.
"To be forgotten? A sad wish! Nay, surely life in a regiment of Africa
cannot be so cloudless that it can create in you no other?"
"It is not. I have another."
"Then tell it to me; it shall be gratified."
"It is to enjoy a luxury long ago lost forever. It is--to be allowed to
give the slight courtesy of a gentleman without being tendered the wage
of a servant."
She understood him; she was moved, too, by the inflexion of his voice.
She was not so cold, not so negligent, as the world called her.
"I had passed my word to grant it; I cannot retract," she answered him,
after a pause.
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