"I knew you'd believe in me," Diane said, half sobbing, as she ended her tale. "I knew you'd understand that one can be a foolish woman without having been a wicked one. Mr. Pruyn would not have been so hard on me if he had thought of that."
"Shall I go and tell him?"
"No; it's too late. The wrong that's been done needs a more radical remedy than you or I could bring to it. Bienville has lied, and I must force him to retract. Nothing else can help me."
To poor Miss Lucilla this was a new and alarming feature in the situation. If it was so, then Marion Grimston ought not to be allowed to marry him. If Diane was right—and she must be right—Mrs. Bayford was mistakenly urging on a match that would bring unhappiness to her niece. This complication was almost more than Miss Lucilla's quietly working intellect could seize, and she followed Diane's succeeding words with but a wandering attention. She understood, however, that, next to being justified by Bienville, Diane attached importance to the aid she expected from Mrs. Eveleth. Hers was the only living voice that could testify to the happy relations always existing between her son and his wife. She could tell, and would tell, that George had fallen as the champion of Diane's honor, and not as the victim of her baseness. If he died it was because he believed in her, not because he was seeking the readiest refuge from their common life. Diane would explain all to Mrs. Eveleth, to whose loyalty she could trust, and on whose love she could depend.
"I'll go and find her," Miss Lucilla said, rising. "You'd like to see her alone?"
"No; I'd rather you were present. My troubles have got beyond the stage of privacy. It's best that those who care for me should hear what can be said in my defence."
Miss Lucilla went, and returned. A few minutes later Mrs. Eveleth could be heard coming slowly down the stairs. But before she had time to enter the room Derek Pruyn, using the privilege of a relative, walked in without announcement.
XIII
If the morning had brought surprises to Miss Lucilla van Tromp, it had not denied them to the Marquis de Bienville. They were all the more astonishing in that they came out of a sky that was relatively clear. As he stood in his dressing-gown, with a cigarette between his fingers, at one of the upper windows of his tall, towerlike hotel, he would have said that his life at the moment resembled the blue dome above him, from which, after a cloudy dawn and dull early morning, the last fleecy drifts were being blown away.
There were many circumstances that combined just now to make him glad of being Raoul de Laval, Marquis de Bienville. The mere material comfort of modern hotel luxury had a certain joyous novelty after nearly two years spent amid the unprofitable splendors of the tropical forest. True, New York was not Paris; but it was an excellent distributing centre for Parisian commodities and news, and would do very well for the work he had immediately in hand. So far, all promised hopefully. His valet had joined him from France, with whatever he could wish in the way of wardrobe; and Mrs. Bayford's reply to his note contained much information beyond what was actually written down in words. Moreover, the statement he had found awaiting him from the Crédit Lyonnais revealed the fact that, owing to the two years in which he had little or no need to spend money, he could now live with handsome extravagance until after he married Miss Grimston. He might even pay the more pressing of his debts, though that possibility presented itself in the light of a work of supererogation, seeing that in so short a time he should be able to pay them all.