“Very well,” he agreed. “But send your maid home in a cab; I can not talk before her.”
“Yes, you can. She knows no language except French—and a little English. She always drives home with me.”
This was true. But if I had been talking to Raoul, I would perhaps have given the dear old woman her first experience of being sent off by herself. In that case, she would not have minded, for she likes Raoul, admires him as a “dream of a young man,” and already suspected what I hadn’t yet told her—that we were engaged. But with Count Godensky forced upon me as a companion, I would not for any consideration have parted with Marianne.
Three or four minutes after starting I was giving instructions to my chauffeur where to stop, and almost immediately afterwards Godensky appeared. He got in and took the place at my left, Marianne, silent, but doubtless astonished, facing us on the little front seat.
“Now,” I exclaimed. “Please begin quickly.”
“Don’t force me to be too abrupt,” he said. “I would spare you if I could. You speak as if you grudged me every moment with you. Yet I am here because I love you.”
“Oh, please, Monsieur!” I broke in. “You know I’ve told you that is useless.”
“But everything is changed since then. Perhaps now, even your mind will be changed. That happens with women sometimes. I want to warn you of a great danger that threatens you, Maxine. Perhaps, late as it is, I could save you from it if you’d let me.”
“Save me from what?” I asked temporising. “You’re very mysterious, Count Godensky. And I’m Mademoiselle de Renzie except to my very intimate friends.”
“I am your friend, always. Maybe you will even permit me to speak of myself as your ‘intimate friend’ when I have done what I hope to do for you in—in the matter of a certain document which has disappeared.”