After so explicit an avowal the extraction of the whole story was not difficult. Laurence de Vigerie sat motionless while, pacing restlessly to and fro, the young man unfolded it to her. All his bitterly hurt self-esteem was in the tale.
"I have lied to Horatia and I have lied to you," he ended. "You see what wreckage I have made. I have alienated my wife for ever; I have involved you in a scandal. It seems to me that there is nothing left but to blow my brains out, or to slip into the Seine."
"I think Horatia should have believed you," said Madame de Vigerie in rather a hard voice.
"I had lied too much," answered Armand, and there was silence. A petal from a hothouse flower fell on the shining table at the Vicomtesse's elbow. She took it up and began to twist it in her fingers. At the other side of the room, Armand sat on a couch with his head in his hands.
"If I had been seeing her as I used to do it could never have happened. Why did you make up that story to keep us apart?"
The young man gave a sound like a groan. "Must you know the real reason?"
"If I am ever to forgive you."
"It was because I wanted you so madly, and because I saw that I had no chance while you were her friend. You were too honourable. It was a base trick ... but I would have stooped to anything ... I suppose you will never have anything to do with me again, and I have nothing but my own cursed folly to thank for it. If I had not been blinded I should have seen long ago that you were the only woman in the universe for me—Laurence, Laurence, you could have made something of me ... and I have deceived you, and damaged your reputation. I will say good-bye, I think, before you send me away." He got up. Madame de Vigerie had buried her face in her hands.
"Good-bye," he repeated. "Do not fear that I am going to shoot myself. I am not worth such an heroic ending." He laughed unsteadily. "Will you not even say good-bye, Laurence?"
Never, in all his hours of gaiety and success had Armand de la Roche-Guyon so appealed to Laurence de Vigerie as now. He had made wreckage, and he would be the first to suffer. She saw him swept to the feet of the worthless.