Well, she need not fear!
He would as studiously avoid her hereafter, and she should know it. And
yet--yes, there was a "yet." For he could not forget--indeed, in the
past three weeks it had been more often before him than he cared to
think--that she was the one human being who had been capable of a great
act of self-sacrifice for him--her enemy, her accuser, the man who had
scarcely treated her civilly. He was ashamed to remember now that this
thought had occurred to him at the bedside of his wife--at the hour of
her escape--even on the fatal slope on which he had been struck down.
And now this fond illusion must go with the rest--the girl who had
served him so loyally was ashamed of it! A bitter smile crossed his
face.
"Well, I don't wonder! Here are all the women asking me who is that
good-looking Mephistopheles, with the burning eyes, who is prowling
around my rooms as if searching for a victim. Why, you're smiling for
all the world like poor Jim when he used to do the Red Avenger."
Susy's voice--and illustration--recalled him to himself.
"Furious I may be," he said with a gentler smile, although his eyes
still glittered, "furious that I have to wait until the one woman I came
to see--the one woman I have not seen for so long, while these puppets
have been nightly dancing before her--can give me a few moments from
them, to talk of the old days.
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