‘Yes,’ Hartover answered; while as he spoke sauciness, laughter, almost youth itself, died out of his face, leaving it grave, drawn, and very pallid. ‘You are right. Between you and me, as matters now stand, your Magnificence, it all comes to the dirty, low-caste business of a bargain—and a hard one. Only let us both speak the truth, please, in as far as we are able. It may save some ugly fighting hereafter.—You say you heard of the legalising of a certain entanglement from Mr. Halidane. Was that your first knowledge of it?’ ‘Rumours may have reached me earlier.’ ‘Through whom?’—Hartover went white about the lips—‘Through Fédore?’ ‘You forget, she had left my service.’ ‘But had no rumours reached you through her—Fédore—of another marriage, about three years ago?’ Lady Longmoor moved slightly, throwing back her head. She was very angry, but she was also very nervous—so, at least, I fancied. ‘This persistent asking of riddles becomes monotonous,’ she said. ‘Of what exactly are you speaking, my dear George?’ ‘Of Fédore’s marriage to your butler, Marsigli. They were confidential servants, to both of whom we all understood you were a good deal attached. It seems improbable, when they married, you should be ignorant of the fact.’ ‘Oh! there you are totally mistaken,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘The private lives of my servants are no concern of mine. So long as they serve me well, and there aren’t any scandals in the household, I am not so foolish as to invite annoyance by asking questions. If they are silent, I am silent likewise. I have no belief in fussing—especially when the establishment runs smooth. And then—tastes no doubt differ—but I really have more important and interesting things to think about than sentimental complications on the part of the maids.’ ‘Even when one of the maids proposes to become your daughter-in-law?’ the boy put in bitterly. ‘Come, your Magnificence, what’s the use of hedging. Did you or didn’t you know?’ But here her ladyship saw fit to change her tactics by making a spirited raid into the enemy’s country. ‘And if rumours, again, had reached me,’ she asked, ‘what then?’ ‘This—that, knowing, you still said nothing, made no attempt to prevent my doing this infamous thing.’ ‘Stop, stop,’ Lady Longmoor cried. ‘You forget there is quite another aspect of the case. If I did not intervene it was simply because I knew intervention to be hopeless. Would you have listened to me? Have you ever listened? I am only human, after all, and my stock of patience, alas! is not inexhaustible. You can hardly deny having made heavy drafts on it, my dear George, for a number of years now.’ ‘I deny nothing under that head,’ Hartover said quietly.