At dinner we spoke ceremoniously of the party. And when we went back to the salon she went straight to the piano and played divinely for an hour. The music soothed me. I felt less angry and disturbed. "Won't you come over and speak now?" I called in a pause, and she came over and sat down. "Don't let us talk to-night," she said. "I am trying to adjust things in my mind. I want to go to my mother to-morrow, if you will agree. She is ill again, and has not been able to start. From there I will tell you if I can force myself to keep on with it, or no." "I cannot understand why it should be so difficult, the idea did not affright you when we first talked of it. You voluntarily accepted the proposal, made your bargain, promised to stick to it, and here after three days you are trying to break out, and are insinuating that the circumstances are too horrible for you to continue bearing it. Surely your reason and common sense must tell you that your behaviour is grotesque." The same agitation which always shows when we talk thus overcame her again. She did not speak. "I could understand it better if you were a hysterical character. You did not seem to be so, but now no ridiculous school miss of romance could be more given to the vapours. You will absolutely destroy the remaining respect I have for you, unless you tell me the truth, and what is underneath in your mind influencing you to behave so childishly." This stung her to the quick, as I had meant that it should. She bounded up. "Well,--I will then. I hate being in the house--with your mistress!" She was trembling all over, and as white as marble. I leaned back and laughed softly. My joy was so immense I could not help it. "To begin with, I have no mistress, but if I had how can it possibly matter to you, since you hate me, and yourself arranged to be only my secretary." "You have no mistress!" I could see she thought I was lying ignobly. "I had one, as of course you know, but the moment I began to think that you might be an agreeable companion, I parted from her, at the time when you saw the counterfoils in the cheque-book, and changed to me from that moment." "Then--?" she still looked incredulous. "She has a cousin living in the flat above, married to an _anticaire_. She comes to see her. You have no doubt met on the stairs. And on our wedding day she came in here, not knowing, to thank me for a villa I had given her at Monte Carlo as a good-bye present. I am very angry that she intruded, and it shall never happen again." "Is this true?" She was breathless. That made me angry. "I am not in the habit of lying," I said haughtily. "_Mademoiselle la Blonde_," and her lips curled. "She came in while you were at St. Malo. She inferred you had not parted then!" "That was because she was jealous, and is very temperamental. I had thought that quality was confined to her class." I too can hit hard when I am insulted!