“Thank you,” I said shortly.
“It is possible,” continued Marion, “that the place of her retreat may be discovered. God forbid it should be so; but it may be. In that case we can only pray that the worst may not happen.”
I crowed. “Well, pray,” I said, “with all your heart; you had better begin at once. As a Vicar’s daughter you should know the ropes. But for me this is a very practical matter, it seems.”
She failed to protest, after her custom, over my profanity; and I paced a turn or two in sheer desperation.
“Well,” I said at last, “you have appealed to our relationship, and to the knowledge it gives you of me, and, for the sake of my own credit, I must not be found wanting. I tell you candidly that I believe this all to be some wild hallucination of your brain; but I am ready to humour it, if that will satisfy you. Trot up the young victim—but wait a minute. She is to live, pour le moment, you say, under my protection. As what?”
She looked at me very oddly.
“You are a gentleman, Felix Dane,” she said.
“I may be the incomparable Bayard himself, Marion; but jealousy has denied me his reputation.”
“‘As thy days, so shall thy strength be,’ Felix” (it was her only concession to the old Marion). “For the rest, she must not be known, of course, for whom she is. Call her simply Fifine.”
“And Madame Crussol and the others?”