I made her a dignified bow and stepped towards the door.
"What do you mean?" she asked sharply.
"That I ride homewards this afternoon."
She shot a glance at Mademoiselle Durette, who slipped obediently out of the room.
"And why?" she asked, with an innocent assumption of surprise, coming towards me. "Why?"
"What, madame!" I replied, looking her straight in the face. "Surely your ingenuity can find a reason."
"My ingenuity?" She spoke in the same accent of wonderment. "My ingenuity? Mr. Buckler, you take a tone----" She came some paces nearer to me and asked very gently: "Am I to blame?"
The humility of the question, and a certain trembling of the lips that uttered it, well-nigh disarmed me; but I felt that did I answer her, did I venture the mildest reproach, I should give her my present advantage.
"No, no," I replied, with a show of indifference; "my own people need me."
She took another step, and spoke with lowered eyes. "Are there no people who need you here?"