There was a cry from Kitty. The stranger paused--looked--advanced. The
little maid rose, half fierce, half frightened.
"Go, Blanche, go!" said Kitty, panting; "go back into the hotel."
"Not unless your ladyship wishes me to leave you," said the girl,
firmly.
"Go at once!" Kitty repeated, with a peremptory gesture. She herself
rose from her seat, and with one hand resting on the table awaited the
new-comer. Blanche looked at her--hesitated--and went.
Geoffrey Cliffe came to Kitty's side. As he approached her his eyes
fastened on the loveliness of her attitude, her fair head. In his own
expression there was a visionary, fantastic joy; it was the look of the
dreamer who, for once, finds in circumstance and the real, poetry
adequate and overflowing.
"Kitty!--why did you do this?" he said to her, passionately, as he
caught her hand.
Kitty snatched it away, trembling under his look. She began the answer
she had devised while he was crossing the flagged quay towards her. But
Cliffe paid no heed. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and she sank back
powerless into her chair as he bent over her.
"Cruel--cruel child, to play with me so! Did you mean to put me to a
last test?--or did your hard little heart misgive you at the last
moment? I cross-examined your landlady--I bribed the servants--the
gondoliers.
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