"
At that instant I grew scornful, and longed to tell him of her husband.
But then a husband was not an acquaintance. I ventured instead: "I am
sorry, but I must cut short all conversation for the present. When he is
a little better, he will be benefited by your brightest gossip, Mrs.
Falchion."
She rose smiling, but she did not again take his hand, though I thought
he made a motion to that end. But she looked down at him steadily for a
moment. Beneath her look his face flushed, and his eyes grew hot with
light; then they dropped, and the eyelids closed on them. At that she
said, with an incomprehensible airiness: "Good-night. I am going now to
play the music of 'La Grande Duchesse' as a farewell to Gibraltar. They
have a concert on to-night."
And she was gone.
At the mention of La Grande Duchesse he sighed, and turned his head away
from her. What it all meant I did not know, and she had annoyed me as
much as she had perplexed me; her moods were like the chameleon's
colours. He lay silent for a long time, then he turned to me and said:
"Do you remember that tale in the Bible about David and the well of
Bethlehem?" I had to confess my ignorance.
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