‘I see,’ she said, ‘that you have found my bracelet’
He handed it to her without a word. She purred a ‘Thank you,’ and tested its clasp about her arm.
‘Sit down, Mr. Armstrong,’ she said.
Paul was still voiceless, but he echoed the coldly courteous Mr. Armstrong ‘in his mind with some dismay.
‘I do not see,’ said the Baroness de Wyeth, ‘how it is possible to pass over the incident of to-night in silence. Perhaps we may speak one explanatory word about it and let it go. What have you to tell me, Mr. Armstrong?’
‘Well——’
Paul balanced appealing hands in front of him, waved them, suffered them to fall at his sides, and said no more.
‘You must be conscious,’ said the Baroness, tapping the book which lay before her with her paper-knife, ‘that it was by accident that the incident which is only known to ourselves did not happen in public. In a measure I have compromised myself, and, if you will permit me to say so, I am not a woman who is accustomed to be compromised. Your wife objects—a little unconventionally perhaps—to our association. I am a woman of the world, and I know very well what construction might be placed on such an episode. We can both see clearly that such a thing might happen again at any instant under circumstances less favourable to my reputation, and I cannot afford to risk the renewing of it I am seriously afraid that I shall have in future to deny myself the privileges of a very pleasant friendship.’
‘Your will shall be my law,’ said Paul ‘I have no excuse to urge, and have certainly no complaint to make of your decision. I shall go at your command, Gertrude——’
She waved the paper-knife against him with a gesture which seemed to protest against that one dear familiarity.