“Incorrect? What have I said that is incorrect?” she cried with innocent surprise.
“That I came, not on business, but to see you.”
“I only told Gatrina,” she said, laughing coquettishly, as though she had the right to tell the world if she pleased; and then added with significant insinuation: “You must have got very intimate with her if she told you my secrets. I’m afraid I shall really have to warn the Queen that you are a dangerous man for her advocate to be on such confidential terms with.”
“I am not discussing that. I am merely asking you not to repeat that statement to anyone.”
“But isn’t it true?”
“No. And you know it is not,” I replied bluntly.
“Then I am lost in amazement. You certainly did not come on the business of the loan; you are much to shrewd for that. And if you didn’t come to see me, whom did you come to see?” A most excellent assumption of surprise veiled this thrust.
“I came as an American financier, Baroness, looking after my own interests.”
But she laughed and shook her finger at me. “Fie, Mr. Bergwyn, fie. I did not look to you, the apostle of stolid truth, for such a statement.” Then with a change to reflective seriousness. “If it was not for me, then it must have been for Gatrina. That’s why I told her what I did and gave her a peep, just a little peep, into the past. But I have not shewn her your letters—yet. Not one of them; not even the least impressive of them. I could not do that; they are all sacred in my eyes. My most precious possessions.”
“What is your object in all this—this burlesque?”