“What do you mean?—your rings and trinkets, the bracelet with the hair—mine, of course,—it could be no one's but mine.”
“All, everything,” said she, with a gulp.
“I must read the old woman's letter over again. You have n't burnt that, I hope?”
“No; it's upstairs in my writing-desk.”
“I declare,” said he, rising and standing with his back to the fire, “you women, and especially fine ladies, say things to each other that men never would dare to utter to other men. That old dame, for instance, charged you with what we male creatures have no equivalent for,—cheating at play would be mild in comparison.”
“I don't think that you escaped scot-free,” said she, with an intense bitterness, though her tone was studiously subdued and low.
“No,” said he, with a jeering laugh. “I figured as the accessory or accomplice, or whatever the law calls it. I was what polite French ladies call le mari complaisant,—a part I am so perfect in, Madam, that I almost think I ought to play it for my Benefit.' What do you say?”
“Oh, sir, it is not for me to pass an opinion on your abilities.”
“I have less bashfulness,” said he, fiercely. “I 'll venture to say a word on yours. I 've told you scores of times—I told you in India, I told you at the Cape, I told you when we were quarantined at Trieste, and I tell you now—that you never really captivated any man much under seventy. When they are tottering on to the grave, bald, blear-eyed, and deaf, you are perfectly irresistible; and I wish—really I say it in all good faith—you would limit the sphere of your fascinations to such very frail humanities. Trafford only became spooney after that smash on the skull; as he grew better, he threw off his delusions,—did n't he?”
“So he told me,” said she, with perfect calm.