“Mademoiselle?”

At once he guessed her errand, tasted in anticipation the unparalleled bitterness of being compelled to refuse her.  Yet at her invitation he stepped back into the cool of the hall.

In the middle of the floor of chequered marbles, black and white, stood a carved table of black oak.  By this he halted, leaning lightly against it whilst she sat enthroned in the great crimson chair beside it.

“Monsieur, I cannot allow you so to depart,” she said.  “You cannot realize, monsieur, what a blow would be dealt my uncle if... if evil, irrevocable evil were to overtake his godson to-morrow.  The expressions that he used at first... "

“Mademoiselle, I perceived their true value.  Spare yourself.  Believe me I am profoundly desolated by circumstances which I had not expected to find.  You must believe me when I say that.  It is all that I can say.”

“Must it really be all?  Andre is very dear to his godfather.”

The pleading tone cut him like a knife; and then suddenly it aroused another emotion — an emotion which he realized to be utterly unworthy, an emotion which, in his overwhelming pride of race, seemed almost sullying, yet not to be repressed.  He hesitated to give it utterance; hesitated even remotely to suggest so horrible a thing as that in a man of such lowly origin he might conceivably discover a rival.  Yet that sudden pang of jealousy was stronger than his monstrous pride.

“And to you, mademoiselle?  What is this Andre-Louis Moreau to you?  You will pardon the question.  But I desire clearly to understand.”

Watching her he beheld the scarlet stain that overspread her face.  He read in it at first confusion, until the gleam of her blue eyes announced its source to lie in anger.  That comforted him; since he had affronted her, he was reassured.  It did not occur to him that the anger might have another source.

“Andre and I have been playmates from infancy.  He is very dear to me, too; almost I regard him as a brother.  Were I in need of help, and were my uncle not available, Andre would be the first man to whom I should turn.  Are you sufficiently answered, monsieur?  Or is there more of me you would desire revealed?”

He bit his lip.  He was unnerved, he thought, this morning; otherwise the silly suspicion with which he had offended could never have occurred to him.

He bowed very low.  “Mademoiselle, forgive that I should have troubled you with such a question.  You have answered more fully than I could have hoped or wished.”

He said no more than that.  He waited for her to resume.  At a loss, she sat in silence awhile, a pucker on her white brow, her fingers nervously drumming on the table.  At last she flung herself headlong against the impassive, polished front that he presented.

“I have come, monsieur, to beg you to put off this meeting.”

She saw the faint raising of his dark eyebrows, the faintly regretful smile that scarcely did more than tinge his fine lips, and she hurried on.  “What honour can await you in such an engagement, monsieur?”