“We started late on a Friday, the opera being closed on that night, and arrived safely at the frontier. Then we suddenly discovered that the old woman had not been provided with a passport. The girl whom I had undertaken to assist wept and sobbed with terror.”
“A preconcerted affair, my poor Paul.”
“No doubt. We agreed that there was nothing to be done but to leave the old attendant behind with money and instructions to follow as early as she possibly could, and then to pursue our journey. For more than a week we continued our flight. It seemed to me then more like a strange, fascinating dream, than an incident of my real every-day life. I fell more and more under the spell of this beautiful siren’s beauty and insidious charm of manner, and by the time we reached Paris I had completely lost my senses. About three days after we reached our destination, I made her my wife; we were married at the British embassy.”
Paul’s mother clasped her hands with a cry. The point at which she had desired to arrive even now electrified her. She could not have explained her own feelings at that moment. Her brain seemed in a whirl from the shock. The story gave her the idea that it was like one of those fantastical dreams, where all the personages who appear perform the most improbable tricks, and everybody apparently does the most unlikely acts.
“May I inquire the name of this amiable young person?” she asked, and her own voice struck her as being strange.
“It is already known to you,” answered Paul, in hollow tones. “But I will mention it when I have finished my narration. We were married. The ceremony over, we returned to the hotel where I had placed her, and where I had likewise taken up my abode. Within an hour after this fatal bond had been tied, an accidental observation on my part revealed to her the fact that I was not the rich and titled man she had supposed me to be. I had asked her to relinquish the stage as a profession, and she laughingly answered that as the wife of a great English milord it would be impossible for her to continue the career to which she had meant to devote her life. I was confounded at the mistake into which she had so unhappily fallen, and endeavored to explain my real position to her.”
Mrs. Desfrayne tapped her foot on the carpet with such violence that Paul stopped.
“Go on—go on—go on!” she exclaimed.
“This girl, whom I up to that moment had had the fatuity to imagine loved me for myself alone, went on in an ecstasy dilating on the future splendors of her lot. I at length succeeded in inducing her to listen to me. Then I laid before her the realities of my position, my limited income, the quietude of the life she would be obliged to lead. I spoke of you——”
“How dared you speak of me to a person like that?” furiously asked Mrs. Desfrayne.