“Pardon me,” I said, “it has to be mentioned, and unless you are in the humor to permit yourself to be made the dupe and tool of as wicked a little adventuress as ever lived, you must listen to what I have to tell you. I came here yesterday to consult Violet as to what I should do with respect to a plot in which I have found the baroness to be engaged. You have often heard the count and myself speak of poor old Ruffiano. You know him as one of Violet's pensioners, and, indeed, I remember that twice or thrice I have met him in your house. He has been betrayed to the Austrians, and is at this minute in their hands. The prime mover in that matter is the Baroness Bonnar, and her tool was the Honorable George Brunow.” Now surely one would have thought that a charge so plain and dreadful was at least worth investigation, and it had not entered my mind to conceive that even an angry woman could fail to take some sort of account of it. Lady Rollinson took it merely as a tissue of absurdities. “It only shows,” she said, “how desperate your own case must be when you need to bolster it by a story like that--a story which could be proved to be false in half a minute.” “Why should you suppose me,” I retorted, “to be so foolish as to bring you such a story if it could not be proved to be true? I ask nothing more or less than that you should inquire into the matter.” “I shall do nothing of the sort,” she answered. “I know too much already.” “I am sorry,” I answered, “to be so seriously at issue with you on such a theme, but I am compelled to insist upon my right.” “I shall have nothing to say on the matter,” she answered, “until the count returns. He will be the final judge of what is to be done; but until he comes I shall do my duty, and it is no part of my duty to allow my niece to listen to the persuasions of a man who has only too clearly proved his powers in that way already.” “Only a few weeks ago,” I said, desperately, “I had an interview with the Baroness Bonnar, in which I warned her not to intrude upon your society again.” “I know all about it!” cried Lady Rollinson, with an indignant movement of her fan. “You tried to bully the poor thing into silence. You may save yourself any further trouble, Captain Fyffe. My mind is made up, and I shall do what I have decided to do. In my days,” she added, beginning to cry, which made the situation more intolerable than ever--“in my days, when a gentleman was told by a lady that his presence was unwelcome in her house he would never have intruded.” “My dear Lady Rollinson,” I responded, controlling myself with a very considerable effort, “you must listen to reason. You have been made the dupe of a thoroughly heartless and unprincipled woman.” “That appears to be your method!” She flashed back at me. “You can say what you please about my character, now that I know yours. Thank God I am too well known to fear your rancorous tongue!”