“From the plain truth,” she answered, with an expression of anger and disdain which, if not real, was an excellent bit of acting in its way. “The brave Captain Fyffe is ambitious, and has made up his mind to marry money; but Miss Rossano, whom I have the honor to know, might shrink from Captain Fyffe if she knew him to be not merely a penniless adventurer, but a perjured and heartless villain.' “Madame,” I replied, “I will not be so poor a diplomatist as to lose my temper over these charges. There are hundreds of people still alive in my native place to whom Miss Pleyel's miserable history is known, and such a charge as you are making could only excite derision if it were openly brought against me.” “You came here with a purpose,” she said, coldly. “I shall be obliged if you will fulfil your purpose, and--” “When I have fulfilled my purpose I will go. I will be as brief as I can. When I was a lad of twenty I was desperately in love with Miss Constance Pleyel, or thought I was, which at that time of life is pretty much the same thing.” “It will serve at any time of life,” said the baroness. She listened with an air of aversion and impatience, which made a painful task more painful to perform. “My father was a half-pay officer,” I went on, “very poor and very proud. Miss Pleyel's father was a tradesman, an Austrian Jew, rich, vulgar, and ostentatious.” “Rich, certainly,” the baroness responded. “I can congratulate you on one point, Captain Fyffe; you have not yet, so far as I can learn, suffered sentiment to blind you to the charms of wealth.” I passed the sneer. When a man is resolutely bent upon a journey he does not stop to fight the flies that tease him. “We moved in different circles. I spoke to Miss Pleyel perhaps a dozen times, but in the hot enthusiasm of youthful love I wrote to her often.” “I have seen your letters,” said the baroness, with a short, contemptuous laugh. “They might have deceived any woman.” I allowed myself to be diverted for a moment. “She keeps them? It is a sign of grace in her that she cares, after so many years, to remember an honest, boyish passion.” “A sign of grace?” cried the baroness, passionately. “Oh, I lose patience with this cool infamy!” Now all this time has gone by I can recall this scene as if it were a bit of stage play; and now that I can read every motive and understand every movement, I am inclined to think the baroness's part in it the finest piece of stage work I have ever seen.