"Who knows? She would be indifferent in that case, and polite: as it is, she is cold, even rude." "That may be resentment." "Resentment means remembrance." "Oh, not always." "Then she has a number of my letters." "So you said; you cannot be so very sure she has kept them. Other people may have written her the same sort of letters, or more admirable letters still: how can you tell?" He colors angrily. "She is not a _femme légère_." "She is receiving a great deal of attention now from Lord Brandolin, and she does not seem to dislike it. They say he writes exquisite letters to women he is fond of; I don't know myself, because I have never had anything more interesting from him than notes about dinners or visits; but they say so. They even say that his deserted ladies forgive his desertions because he writes his farewells so divinely." "Lord Brandolin's epistolary accomplishments do not interest me in the least. Everybody knows what he is with women." He pauses a moment, then adds, with some hesitation,-- "Dear Dorothy, you know her very well. Don't you think you could find out for me, and tell me----" "What?" "Well, what she thinks or does not think; in a word, how I stand with her." "No,--oh, no, my dear Alan; I couldn't attempt anything of that sort,--in my own house, too: it would seem so horribly rude. Besides, I am not in the least--not the very least--intimate with her. I think her charming, we are _bonnes connaiassances_, the children adore her; but I have never said anything intimate to her in my life,--never." "But you have so much tact." "The more tact I have, the less likely shall I be to recall to her what she is evidently perfectly determined to ignore. You can do it yourself if you want it done. You are not usually shy." Gervase gets up impatiently, and walks about in the narrow limits of the boudoir, to the peril of the Sèvres and Saxe. "But women have a hundred indirect ways of finding out everything: you might discover perfectly well, if you chose, whether--whether she feels anger or any other sentiment; whether--whether, in a word, it would be prudent to recall the past to her." Lady Usk shakes her head with energy, stirring all its pretty blonde curls, real and false. "_Entre l'arbre et l'écorce ne mettez pas le doigt._ That is sound advice which I have heard given at the Français." "That is said of not interfering between married people." "It is generally true of people who wish, or may not wish, to marry. And I suppose, Alan, that when you speak in my house of renewing your--your--relations with the Princess Sabaroff, you do not mean that you have any object less serious than _le bon motif_?" Gervase is amused, although he is disconcerted and irritated. "Come, Dorothy, your guests are not always so very serious, are they? I never knew you so prim before."