she answered
very softly:

"I will go anywhere with you, monsieur--anywhere."

With a cry he broke from her. There was no fancying now; no possibility
of misunderstanding. He saw how she had misread his question, how she
had delivered herself up to him in answer. His almost roughness startled
her, and she stared at him as he stamped down the apartment and back
to where she stood, seeking in vain to master the turbulence of his
feelings. He stood still again. He took her by the shoulders and held
her at arms' length, before him, thus surveying her, and there was
trouble in his keen eyes.

"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!" he cried. "Valerie, my child, what are you
saying to me?"

"What would you have me say?" she asked, her eyes upon the floor. "Was I
too forward? It seemed to me there could not be question of such a thing
between us now. I belong to you. What man has ever served a woman as
you have served me? What better friend, what nobler lover did ever woman
have? Why then need I take shame at confessing my devotion?"

He swallowed hard, and there was a mist before his eyes--eyes that had
looked unmoved on many a scene of carnage.

"You know not what you do," he cried out, and his voice was as the voice
of one in pain. "I am old."

"Old?" she echoed in deep surprise, and she looked up at him, as if she
sought evidence of what he stated.

"Aye, old," he assured her bitterly. "Look at the grey in my hair, the
wrinkles in my face. I am no likely lover for you, child. You'll need a
lusty, comely young gallant."

She looked at him, and a faint smile flickered at the corners of her
lips. She observed his straight, handsome figure; his fine air of
dignity and of strength. Every inch a man was he; never lived there one
who was more a man; and what more than such a man could any maid desire?

"You are all that I would have you," she answered him, and in his mind
he almost cursed her stubbornness, her want of reason.

"I am peevish and cross-grained," he informed her, "and I have grown old
in ignorance of woman's ways. Love has never come to me until now. What
manner of lover, think you, can I make?"

Her eyes were on the windows at his back. The sunshine striking through
them seemed to give her the reply she sought.

"To-morrow will be Saint Martin's Day," she told him; "yet see with a
warmth the sun is shining."

"A poor, make-believe Saint Martin's Summer," said he. "I am fitly
answered by your allegory."