He took out the letter from the envelope and read a line or two with a sigh, and another line or two with a laugh.

“But your English girls are strange!” he said again.  “Here is an instance, an example, fallen by accident from my cigarette-case.  M. le Commandant, I will read it to you, that you may see how strange they are.”

One of Plessy’s subalterns extended his hand and laid it on his sleeve.  Plessy turned upon him angrily, and the subaltern withdrew his hand.

“I will read it to you,” he said again to Faversham.  Faversham did not protest nor did he now make any effort to move.  But his face grew pale, he shivered once or twice, his eyes seemed to be taking the measure of Plessy’s strength, his brain to be calculating upon his prowess; the sweat began to gather upon his forehead.

Of these signs, however, Plessy took no note.  He had reached however inartistically the point at which he had been aiming.

He was no longer to be baulked of reading his letter.  He read it through to the end, and Faversham listened to the end.  It told its own story.  It was the letter of a girl who wrote in a frank impulse of admiration to a man whom she did not know.  There was nowhere a trace of coquetry, nowhere the expression of a single sentimentality.  Its tone was pure friendliness, it was the work of a quite innocent girl who because she knew the man to whom she wrote to be brave, therefore believed him to be honourable.  She expressed her trust in the very last words.  “You will not of course show this letter to any one in the world.  But I wrong you even by mentioning such an impossibility.”

“But you have shown it,” said Faversham.

His face was now grown of an extraordinary pallor, his lips twitched as he spoke and his fingers worked in a nervous uneasy manner upon the table-cloth.  Captain Plessy was in far too complacent a mood to notice such trifles.  His vanity was satisfied, the world was a rosy mist with a sparkle of champagne, and he answered lightly as he unfastened another button of his tunic.

“No, my friend, I have not shown it.  I keep the lady’s wish.”

“You have read it aloud.  It is the same thing.”

“Pardon me.  Had I shown the letter I should have shown the name.  And that would have been a dishonour of which a gallant man is incapable, is it not so?  I read it and I did not read the name.”

“But you took pains, Captain Plessy, that we should know the name before you read the letter.”

“I?  Did I mention a name?” exclaimed Plessy with an air of concern and a smile upon his mouth which gave the lie to the concern.  “Ah, yes, a long while ago.  But did I say it was the name of the lady who had written the letter?  Indeed, no.  You make a slight mistake, my friend.  I bear no malice for it—­believe me, upon my heart, no!  After a dinner and a little bottle of champagne, there is nothing more pardonable.  But I will tell you why I read the letter.”