"It is an open secret. I saw the father and daughter in Paris three weeks ago, and fell in love at first sight--ah! you may laugh. You Englishwomen cannot understand us Latins. It is true that I proposed to you, but you would not take me, and my heart was soon after caught in the rebound. It is very simple."
"You thought that you fell in love with me at first sight, too; at least, you said so, and without any introduction except picking up my purse when I dropped it in the Champs Élysées."
"I got an introduction afterwards."
"Yes, a lady who was staying at my hotel."
"At all events, she vouched for me. She has known my family for years, in Madrid."
"She warned me against you, Marchese. She said that you were a fortune-hunter, and that you fancied I was rich. When you had proposed, and I had told you frankly that my fortune was but silver-gilt, warranted to keep its colour for a few years only, you were very much obliged to me for refusing you, as it saved you the trouble of jilting me afterwards. You are still more obliged to me now that you have met a genuine heiress who has all other desirable qualifications as well."
"You are cruel," exclaimed Villa Fora, to whose style of good looks reproaches were becoming. "Cannot a man love twice? What does it matter to the heart whether there has been an interval of weeks or of years? I am madly in love with Miss Ffrench, and as you promised to be my friend if I would 'talk no more nonsense,' I have no hesitation in confessing it to you. I followed her here from Paris, and arrived only this afternoon. She is at the Hotel Victoria; therefore, so am I."
"So am I, but not 'therefore,'" cut in Joan. "And the--the man you say she is to marry?"
"Colonel Sir Justin Wentworth? He is at the Grand. But he has come for her. I know the whole story--I have it from a gossiping old lady who is au courant with every one's affairs if they are worth bothering with; and she does not make mistakes. She has told me that General Ffrench was the guardian of this Sir Justin, that the father--a baronet--was his dearest friend. The match has been an understood thing ever since Wentworth was eighteen and the girl five; for there is quite thirteen years' difference in their ages."
"Then he is about thirty-four or five," said Joan thoughtfully.