"But I am recently from the Chateau de Montalais, and in a position to a.s.sure mademoiselle that this poor fellow, d.u.c.h.emin, is unjustly accused."
"Oh, ho, ho!"
He heard again that laugh of broad derision which had seemed so out of character with a great lady when he had heard it first, that night now nearly a month old.
"Mademoiselle does not believe?"
"I think monsieur must be a good friend to this Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin."
"I confess I entertain a sneaking fondness for his memory."
"You can hardly call yourself an impartial judge--"
"It is nevertheless true he did not steal the jewels."
"Then tell me who did take them."
"Unfortunately for d.u.c.h.emin, that remains a mystery."
"Rather, I should say, fortunately for him."
"You would wrong him, then."
"But why, if innocent, did he run away?"
"I imagine, because he knew he would surely be accused, in which case ancient history would be revived to prove him guilty beyond a question in the mind of any sane court."
"Does one understand he had a history?"
"I have heard it intimated such was the case."
"But I remain in the dark. The theft presumably was not discovered till after his disappearance. Yet, according to your contention, he must have known of it in advance. How do you account for that?"
"Mademoiselle would make a famous juge d"instruction."
"That does not answer my argument."
"How is one to answer it? Who knows how d.u.c.h.emin discovered the theft before the ladies of the chateau did?"
"Do you know what you make me think? That he was not as innocent as you a.s.sert."
"Mademoiselle will explain?"
"I have a suspicion that this Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin was guilty in intention; but when it came to put his intention into execution, he found he had been antic.i.p.ated."
"Mademoiselle is too clever for me. Now I should never have thought of that."
"He would have been wiser to stay and fight it out. The very fact of his flight confesses his guilt."
"Perhaps he did not remember that until too late."
"And now nothing can clear him. How sad for him! A chance meeting with one who is not his friend, a whispered word to the Prefecture, or the nearest agent de police, and within an hour he finds himself in the Sante."
"Poor chap!" said Lanyard with a doleful shake of the head.
"I, too, pity him," the woman declared. "Monsieur: against my prejudice, your faith in d.u.c.h.emin has persuaded me. I am convinced that he is innocent."
"How good you are!" "It makes me glad I have so well forgotten ever meeting him. I do not believe I should know him if I found him here, in this very restaurant, even seated by my side."
"It is mademoiselle now whose heart is great and kind."
"You may believe it well."
"And does mademoiselle"s forgetfulness, perhaps, extend even farther into the so dead past?"
"But, monsieur, I was a mere child when I first came to Paris, before the War. How could anyone reasonably expect my memory of those innocent girlish days to be exact? Regard that, even then, I met people by hundreds, as a young girl studying for the stage must. Is it likely one face would stand out in my memory more than another?"
"Quite, if you ask me," said Lanyard dryly--"quite likely, if any circ.u.mstance connected with that face were at all memorable."
"But I a.s.sure you I was in those days much too self-absorbed to pay much attention to others. It is that way, you know, in maiden days."
"Mademoiselle does injustice to her memory," Lanyard insisted in polite astonishment. "In some ways it is wonderful."
The woman looked suddenly aside, so that he could not see her face; but he perceived, with an astonishment which he made no attempt to hide, that she was quaking bodily with some unconfessed emotion. And when she faced again his unbroken look of grave bewilderment, he discovered that she was really capable of tears.
"Monsieur," she gasped, "believe it or not, never before have I met one with whom I was so completely en rapport. And instantaneously! It is priceless, this! We must see more of one another."
"Much more," Lanyard a.s.sented gravely. "A great deal more," she supplemented with significance. "I am sure we shall get along together famously."
"Mademoiselle offers me great honour--"
"Nothing less than my friendship."
"I would be indeed an ingrate to refuse it. But a question: Will not people talk?"
"What!" Amus.e.m.e.nt shook her again. "How talk? What more can they say about Liane Delorme?"
"Ah!" said Lanyard--"but about Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes..."
"My friend: that was a good joke once; but now you must forget that name as utterly as I have forgotten another."
"Impossible."
"What do you say?" She frowned a little. "Is it possible you misunderstood? De Lorgnes was nothing to me."
"I never thought he was."
"You had reason. Because we were thrown together, and our names were something alike in sound, it amused us--not the two of us alone, but all our party--to pretend I was madame la comtesse."