Unorna leaned upon the back of the chair watching him, and wondering whether, after all, he were not in earnest this time. He jerked out his sentences excitedly, striking his hands together and then swinging his arms in strange gestures. His tone, as he gave utterance to his incoherent self-condemnation, was full of sincere conviction and of anger against himself. He seemed not to see Unorna, nor to notice her presence in the room. Suddenly, he stopped, looked at her and came towards her. His manner became very humble.
“You are right, my dear lady,” he said. “I have no claim to your forbearance for my outrageous humours. I have offended you, insulted you, spoken to you as no man should speak to any woman. I cannot even ask you to forgive me, and, if I tell you that I am sorry, you will not believe me. Why should you? But you are right. This cannot go on. Rather than run the risk of again showing you my abominable temper, I will go away.”
His voice trembled and his bright eyes seemed to grow dull and misty.
“Let this be our parting,” he continued, as though mastering his emotion. “I have no right to ask anything, and yet I ask this of you. When I have left you, when you are safe for ever from my humours and my tempers and myself--then, do not think unkindly of Keyork Arabian. He would have seemed the friend he is, but for his unruly tongue.”
Unorna hesitated a moment. Then she put out her hand, convinced of his sincerity in spite of herself.
“Let bygones be bygones, Keyork,” she said. “You must not go, for I believe you.”
At the words, the light returned to his eyes, and a look of ineffable beatitude overspread the face which could be so immovably expressionless.
“You are as kind as you are good, Unorna, and as good as you are beautiful,” he said, and with a gesture which would have been courtly in a man of nobler stature, but which was almost grotesque in such a dwarf, he raised her fingers to his lips.
This time, no peal of laugher followed to destroy the impression he had produced upon Unorna. She let her hand rest in his a few seconds, and then gently withdrew it.
“So soon?” exclaimed Keyork regretfully. “There were many things I had wished to say to you to-day, but if you have no time----”