“Let me change my question,” I responded. “Let me ask you if you have known Miss Constance Pleyel long?”
“Do you know, my good Captain Fyffe,” said the little woman, toying idly with the vinaigrette and sniffing at its contents now and then, “you have a manner which is abominably resolute. You are speaking to me as if you were a rustic juge d'instruction, and I a prisoner in the dock.”
“I beg your pardon, baroness; I was conscious of no such manner. Will you oblige me by telling me if you have known this lady long?”
“I do not recognize your right to question me,” said the baroness; “but since you are audacious enough to come here and to question me about that lady after what I heard last night—” she paused there of set purpose, and repeating the words “after what I heard last night” with emphasis, paused again.
“After what you heard last night,” I repeated, unable to attach any meaning whatever to her words.
“You decline to understand me?” she said, with a threatening nod of her pretty little head. “Very well. But if,” still with marked emphasis, “after what I heard last night you are sufficiently audacious to come here and ask me questions about Constance Pleyel, I can tell you that I have known that lady long enough to know the history of her life and how far you are responsible for the sorrows she has known.”
“I responsible?” I cried.
“Do you deny it?” she retorted.
I had risen to my feet unconsciously, and she arose to face me.
“I deny it absolutely!” I answered. “The suggestion is an outrage!”