“A week ago.  You’ve been engaged only a week?” I broke in.

“Not many days more.  I guessed, I hoped, long ago that Raoul cared, but he wouldn’t have told me, even the day he did tell, if he hadn’t lost his head a little.  He hadn’t meant to speak, it seems, for he’s poor, and he thought he had no right.  But what’s a man worth who doesn’t lose his head when he loves a woman?  I adored him for it.  We decided not to let anyone know until a few weeks before we could marry, as I didn’t care to have my engagement gossipped about, for months on end.  There were reasons why—­more than one:  but the man of all others whom I didn’t want to know the truth found out, or, rather, suspected what had happened, the very day when Raoul and I came to an understanding—­Count Godensky of the Russian Embassy.  He called, and was let in by mistake while Raoul was with me, and, just as he must have seen by our faces that there was something to suspect, so I saw by his that he did suspect.  Oh, a hateful person!  I’ve refused him three times.  There are some men so vain that they can never believe a woman really means to say ‘no’ to them.  Count Godensky is one of those, and he’s dangerous, too.  I’m afraid of him, since I’ve cared for Raoul, though I used to be afraid of no one, when I’d only myself to think of.  Raoul was going away that very night.  He had an errand to do for a woman who was a dear and intimate friend of his dead mother.  You must know of the Duchesse de Montpellier?  Well, it was for her:  and Raoul is like her son.  She has no children of her own.”

“I don’t know her,” I said, “but I’ve seen her; a charming looking woman, about forty-five, with a gloomy-faced husband—­a fellow who might be rather a Tartar to live with.  They were pointed out to me at Monte Carlo one year, in the Casino, where the Duchess seemed to be enjoying herself hugely, though the Duke had the air of being dragged in against his will.”

“No doubt he had been—­or else he was there to fetch her out.  Poor dear, she’s a dreadful gambler.  It’s in her blood!  I She lost, I don’t know how much, at Monte Carlo on an ‘infallible system’ she had.  She’s afraid of her husband, though she loves him immensely; and lately a craze she’s had for Bridge has cost her so much that she daren’t tell the Duke, who hates her gambling.  She confessed to Raoul, and begged him to help her—­not with money, for he has none, but by taking a famous and wonderful diamond necklace of hers to Amsterdam, selling the stones for her there, and having them replaced with paste.  It was all to be done very secretly, of course, so that the Duke shouldn’t know, and Raoul hated it, but he couldn’t refuse.  He had no idea of telling me this story, that day when he ‘lost his head,’ while we were bidding each other good-bye before his journey.  He didn’t mention the name of the Duchess, but said only that he had leave, and was going to Holland on business.  But while he was away a dreadful thing happened—­the most ghastly misfortune—­and as we were engaged to be married, he felt obliged when he came back to let me know the worst.”