CHAPTER XI
MAXINE OPENS THE GATE FOR A MAN
"You are afraid that du Laurier may find out," he said. "But he knows
already."
"Knows what?"
"That I expected to have the privilege of going to your house with you."
All that I had gained seemed worthless. Those quiet, sneering words of
his almost crushed me. On the load I had struggled to bear without
falling they laid one feather too much.
My voice broke. "You--devil!" I cried at him. "You dared to tell Raoul
that?"
Opposite, on her narrow little seat, Marianne stirred uneasily. Till now
our tones had been quiet, and she could not understand one word we said.
She is the soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk
of life; but she loves me more than she loves any other creature on
earth, and now she could see and hear that the man had driven me to the
brink of hysterics. She would have liked to tear his face with her
nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given her the word, I believe she
would have tried with all her strength--which is not small--and a very
good will, to kill him. I was dimly conscious of what her restlessness
meant, and vaguely comforted too, by the thought of her supreme loyalty.
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