“Yes,” said I, “that point there is no doubt about.”
“Is he alive?”
“No, he is dead a great many years back.”
“How did he die, or where? Excuse these questions, which I have only to say are not out of idle importunity.”
I own that I did not feel easy under this cross-examination. It might mean more than I liked to avow even to myself. At all events, I resolved, whatever his object, to evade it; and at once gave him some absurd narrative of my father having served in the war of the Low Countries, where he married a Frenchwoman or a Fleming; that he died, of some fever of the country, at a small fishing town on the Dutch coast, leaving me an orphan, since my mother survived him but a few months.
“All this is excellent,” cried he, enthusiastically. “It could not be better by any possibility. Forgive me, Gervois, till I can explain my meaning to you more fully; but what you have just told me has filled my heart with delight. You 'll see how Madame von Geysiger will receive you when she hears this.”
I started back with astonishment. Could it possibly be the case that my stupid story might chime in with the facts of some real history; and should I thus be involved in the web of some tangled incidents in which I had rightfully no share? There was shame and falsehood both in such a situation, and I shrank from it with disgust.
“I will not go to this house, Count,” said I, resolutely. “I foresee that somehow or other an interest would attach to me to which I can lay no claim. Neither Madame von Geysiger, nor any belonging to her, could have known my parents. Their walk in life was of the very humblest.”
“I have not said she did, my dear friend,” said he, soothingly, “nor is it exactly generous to be so suspectful of one whose only feeling towards you is that of kindness and good will. Once for all, if you desire it, I will allude no further to this subject here or elsewhere.”
“On that condition I will accompany you,” said I.