“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said slowly, sinking back in her chair so that her face was in the shadow of the awning which sheltered the little table between us.
“In the first place, I wouldn’t have told her even if it were true,” I returned, “and in the second, it isn’t true—though YOU have some reason to think it is,” I added.
“I?” she said. “Why?”
“His speaking to you as he did; a thing on the face of it inexcusable—”
“Why did he call me ‘Madame d’Armand’?” she interposed.
I explained something of the mental processes of Amedee, and she listened till I had finished; then bade me continue.
“That’s all,” I said blankly, but, with a second thought, caught her meaning. “Oh, about young Saffren, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I know him pretty well,” I said, “without really knowing anything about him; but what is stranger, I believe he doesn’t really know a great deal about himself. Of course I have a theory about him, though it’s vague. My idea is that probably through some great illness he lost—not his faculty of memory, but his memories, or, at least, most of them. In regard to what he does remember, Professor Keredec has anxiously impressed upon him some very poignant necessity for reticence. What the necessity may be, or the nature of the professor’s anxieties, I do not know, but I think Keredec’s reasons must be good ones. That’s all, except that there’s something about the young man that draws one to him: I couldn’t tell you how much I like him, nor how sorry I am that he offended you.”
“He didn’t offend me,” she murmured—almost whispered.