"Will you answer my question?"
"Why do you come back at all when all is at an end between us? You said so."
"Don't you know why I come back?" The tone was full of feeling; but Lucette merely shrugged her shoulders.
"To see if you had made me miserable, I suppose? You have not;" and she burst again into her song, when Denys caught her by the wrist, and looked intently into her face.
"Do you mean you don't care, Lucette?"
"I care not to have my arm bruised with your great clumsy hands. Antoine would never"
"To hell with your Antoine!" he burst in vehemently. "You play with me as a cat with a bird;" and throwing her hand from him he turned and strode away. He got no farther than the corner of the house, and looking back saw her leaning against the wall nursing her arm as if in pain. "Forgive me, Lucette," he cried remorsefully, hastening back. "I am a brute; you fire my blood when you make me jealous. If you love Antoine de Cavannes better than me, say so now, and let me go. But don't torture me."
She stood nursing her arm and looking up at him.
"Torture you, is it? Torture you?" and she held her arm up in reproach.
"You have only to say the word, and I'll never trouble you again. It can't be both Antoine and me. Choose!"
"Choose!" she repeated, mocking his serious tone. Then with a laugh and a change to coquettish hesitation: "Hot-tempered, handsome Denys or splay-footed, ugly Antoine, eh? It can't be both of you, eh? And if" She paused teasingly.
"In God's name, can't you be serious?"
"When I am, I'll choose neither of you, but just
