I laughed with ostentatiously affected hilarity, and sat down.
Madame d'Artelle gave him her hand nervously, and he turned from her and bowed stiffly to me.
"I think I should not go, Count, if I were you," I said, smoothly.
"Your attitude makes it impossible for me to remain, Miss Gilmore."
"Of course you know best, but I should not go if I were you."
He was uneasy and hesitated; went toward the door and then paused and turned. "If you wish to say anything to me and can do so without insulting me, I am willing to listen to you—as a friend of Madame's;" and he waved his hand in her direction.
"I've a great deal to say and I'm going to say it to some one. Of course if you go, I must say it to some one else."
"And what am I to understand by that?"
"You haven't decided yet whether to go or stay. Now, I'll be much more candid with you than you are with me. It's just a question whether you dare go or not. Your start just now is what we Americans call putting up a bluff. But you can't bluff me. I hold the cards—every one of them a winning card, too. If you go, you lose the game straight away, for I shan't be many minutes in the house after you. You're going to lose anyhow, for that matter: but—well, as I tell you, you'd better not go."
"I'm not versed in American slang, Miss Gilmore, and it doesn't lend itself to translation into German," he sneered.