"
"Then I swear to do as you ask."
He kissed her hands and went away, cursing Erik and resolving
to be patient.
Chapter XI Above the Trap-Doors
The next day, he saw her at the Opera. She was still wearing
the plain gold ring. She was gentle and kind to him. She talked
to him of the plans which he was forming, of his future, of his career.
He told her that the date of the Polar expedition had been put forward
and that he would leave France in three weeks, or a month at latest.
She suggested, almost gaily, that he must look upon the voyage
with delight, as a stage toward his coming fame. And when he
replied that fame without love was no attraction in his eyes,
she treated him as a child whose sorrows were only short-lived.
"How can you speak so lightly of such serious things?" he asked.
"Perhaps we shall never see each other again! I may die during
that expedition."
"Or I," she said simply.
She no longer smiled or jested. She seemed to be thinking
of some new thing that had entered her mind for the first time.
Her eyes were all aglow with it.
"What are you thinking of, Christine?"
"I am thinking that we shall not see each other again.
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