She kept her face hidden on his shoulder, but
was already halfway to a quarrel.
"You don't love me, Florimel!" he said, after a pause, little
thinking how nearly true were the words.
"Well, suppose I don't!" she cried, half defiantly, half merrily;
and drawing herself from him, she stepped back two paces, and
looked at him with saucy eyes, in which burned two little flames
of displeasure, that seemed to shoot up from the red spots glowing
upon her cheeks. Lenorme looked at her. He had often seen her like
this before, and knew that the shell was charged and the fuse lighted.
But within lay a mixture even more explosive than he suspected; for
not merely was there more of shame and fear and perplexity mingled
with her love than he understood, but she was conscious of having
now been false to him, and that rendered her temper dangerous.
Lenorme had already suffered severely from the fluctuations of
her moods. They had been almost too much for him. He could endure
them, he thought, to all eternity, if he had her to himself, safe
and sure; but the confidence to which he rose every now and then
that she would one day be his, just as often failed him, rudely
shaken by some new symptom of what almost seemed like cherished
inconstancy. If after all she should forsake him! It was impossible,
but she might.
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