I am not.
What makes you think I have distractions, as you put it?"
"Oh, nothing, except that I know you are constantly not at home at--
in the evenings. But really, Victor--" she added, a scarlet flush
leaping across her face, and then leaving it pale and cold, with a
shade of reserve and pride upon it. "I have no wish to approach this
subject at all. I should never think of enquiring into or
interfering with a man's life. These are things that must rest in
his own hands."
I looked at her, as the graceful figure seemed to expand with pride,
at the dignity of each line of her form and the pose of the
distinguished head, and an irritated flush crept into my own face.
"I am out constantly, as you say," I answered, "because I cannot
sleep, but I walk then simply in search of fatigue. Pleasure, Lucia!
there can be none for me now until you belong to me. As for my life,
it is a hard-working and as absolutely without relief as your own--
absolutely."
She was silent.
"You don't believe me?"
"Of course I believe you," she answered, impulsively, putting her
white hand suddenly into mine. "If you say so, but--"
"But what?"
She hesitated and coloured. I had not the least idea of what she was
really going to say. I thought the "but" led to some condition more
or less contradictory to her expression of belief in me, or,
perhaps, to some statement she had heard, or something that she had
thought.
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