“No, sir. It is as well unsaid.”
“But it was understood, my Lady, just as well as if it had been uttered. Your Ladyship wondered who was to apologize for me.”
She grew crimson as he spoke; but a faint smile seemed to say how thoroughly she relished that southern keenness that could divine a half-uttered thought.
“How quick you are!” said she, without a trace of irritation.
“Say, rather, how quick he ought to be who attempts to parry you at fence. And, after all,” said he, in a lighter tone, “is it not as well that he has spared us all an embarrassment? I could not surely have been able to condole with him, and how could he have congratulated me?”
“Pardon me, Count, but the matter, so far as I learn, is precisely as it was before. There is neither subject for condolence nor gratulation.”
“So far as the verdict of the jury went, my Lady, you are quite right; but what do you say to that larger, wider verdict pronounced by the press, and repeated in a thousand forms by the public? May I read you one passage, only one, from my lawyer Mr. Kelson's letter?”
“Is it short?”
“Very short.”
“And intelligible?”