You go, Hackh, there's a good chap."
Chantel dropped the helmet he had caught up. Bowing stiffly, Rudolph
marched across the room and down the stairs. His face, pale at the late
spectacle, had grown red and sulky, "Can spare me, can you?--I'm the
one." He descended, muttering.
Viewing himself thus, morosely, as rejected of men, he reached the
compound gate to fare no better with the woman. She stood waiting in the
shadow of the wall; and as he drew unwillingly near, the sight of
her--to his shame and quick dismay--made his heart leap in welcome. She
wore the coolest and severest white, but at her throat the same small
furbelow, every line of which he had known aboard ship, in the days of
his first exile and of his recent youth. It was now as though that youth
came flooding back to greet her.
"Good-morning." He forgot everything, except that for a few priceless
moments they would be walking side by side.
She faced him with a start, never so young and beautiful as now--her
blue eyes wide, scornful, and blazing, her cheeks red and lips
trembling, like a child ready to cry.
"I did not want _you_" she said curtly.
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