On the appearance of Madame de Treymes, however, such considerations gave way to the immediate act of wondering how she meant to carry off her share of the adventure.  Durham had not forgotten the note on which their last conversation had closed:  the lapse of time serving only to give more precision and perspective to the impression he had then received.

Madame de Treymes’ first words implied a recognition of what was in his thoughts.

“It is extraordinary, my receiving you here; but que voulez vous? There was no other place, and I would do more than this for our dear Fanny.”

Durham bowed.  “It seems to me that you are also doing a great deal for me.”

“Perhaps you will see later that I have my reasons,” she returned smiling.  “But before speaking for myself I must speak for Fanny.”

She signed to him to take a chair near the sofa-corner in which she had installed herself, and he listened in silence while she delivered Madame de Malrive’s message, and her own report of the progress of affairs.

“You have put me still more deeply in your debt,” he said, as she concluded; “I wish you would make the expression of this feeling a large part of the message I send back to Madame de Malrive.”

She brushed this aside with one of her light gestures of deprecation.  “Oh, I told you I had my reasons.  And since you are here—­and the mere sight of you assures me that you are as well as Fanny charged me to find you—­with all these preliminaries disposed of, I am going to relieve you, in a small measure, of the weight of your obligation.”

Durham raised his head quickly.  “By letting me do something in return?”

She made an assenting motion.  “By asking you to answer a question.”

“That seems very little to do.”

“Don’t be so sure!  It is never very little to your race.”  She leaned back, studying him through half-dropped lids.

“Well, try me,” he protested.

She did not immediately respond; and when she spoke, her first words were explanatory rather than interrogative.

“I want to begin by saying that I believe I once did you an injustice, to the extent of misunderstanding your motive for a certain action.”

Durham’s uneasy flush confessed his recognition of her meaning.  “Ah, if we must go back to that—­”

“You withdraw your assent to my request?”

“By no means; but nothing consolatory you can find to say on that point can really make any difference.”

“Will not the difference in my view of you perhaps make a difference in your own?”

She looked at him earnestly, without a trace of irony in her eyes or on her lips.  “It is really I who have an amende to make, as I now understand the situation.  I once turned to you for help in a painful extremity, and I have only now learned to understand your reasons for refusing to help me.”