"Have you seen him?" I asked sullenly.
"Mercy, yes! He came at noon while you and Sir Peter were gambling away your guineas at the Coq d'Or."
"He waited upon you?"
"He waited on Lady Coleville. I was there."
"Were you not surprised to see him in New York?"
"Not very"--she considered me with a far-away smile--"not very greatly nor very--agreeably surprised. I have told you his sentiments regarding me."
"I can not understand," I said, "what you see in him to fascinate you."
"Nor I," she replied so angrily that she startled me. "I thought to-day when I met him, Oh, dear! Now I'm to be harrowed with melancholy and passion, when I was having such an agreeable time! But, Carus, even while I pouted I felt the subtle charm of that very sadness, the strange, compelling influence of those melancholy eyes." She sighed and plucked a late violet, drawing the stem slowly between her white teeth and staring at the ruined church.
After a while I said: "Do you regret that you are so soon to leave us?"
"Regret it?" She looked at me thoughtfully. "Carus," she said, "you are wonderfully attractive to me. I wish you had acquired that air of gentle melancholy--that poet's pallor which becomes a noble sadness--and I might love you, if you asked me."
"I'm sad enough at your going," I said lightly.
"Truly, are you sorry? And when I am gone will you forget la belle Canadienne? Ah, monsieur, l'amitié est une chose si rare, que, n'eut-elle duré qu'un jour, on doit en respecter jusqu'au souvenir."
"It is not I who shall forget to respect it, madam, jusqu'au souvenir."
"Nor I, mon ami. Had I not known that love is at best a painful pleasure I might have mistaken my happiness with you for something very like it."
"You babble of love," I blurted out, "and you know nothing of it! What foolish whim possesses you to think that fascination Walter Butler has for you is love?"
"What is it, then?" she asked, with a little shudder.
"How do I know? He has the devil's own tenacity, bold black eyes and a well-cut head, and a certain grace of limb and bearing nowise remarkable. But"--I waved my hand helplessly--"how can a sane man understand a woman's preference?--nay, Elsin, I do not even pretend to understand you. All I know is that our friendship began in an instant, opened to full sweetness like a flower overnight, and, like a flower, is nearly ended now--nearly ended."