I passed the sneer. When a man is resolutely bent upon a journey he does not stop to fight the flies that tease him.
“We moved in different circles. I spoke to Miss Pleyel perhaps a dozen times, but in the hot enthusiasm of youthful love I wrote to her often.”
“I have seen your letters,” said the baroness, with a short, contemptuous laugh. “They might have deceived any woman.”
I allowed myself to be diverted for a moment.
“She keeps them? It is a sign of grace in her that she cares, after so many years, to remember an honest, boyish passion.”
“A sign of grace?” cried the baroness, passionately. “Oh, I lose patience with this cool infamy!”
Now all this time has gone by I can recall this scene as if it were a bit of stage play; and now that I can read every motive and understand every movement, I am inclined to think the baroness's part in it the finest piece of stage work I have ever seen.
“If you will permit me, madame, I will try to put the case in such a way that there shall be no mistake as to what I mean to say. I saw Miss Pleyel rarely, and never once in private. I wrote to her often; I wrote reams of boyish nonsense, which was all meant in fiery earnest then. Then news came. Miss Pleyel ran away from her father's house with Colonel Hill-yard, a man of wealth, a married man with a large family, and, in spite of that fact, a notorious roue. They lived abroad for six months, and Miss Pleyel ran away from Colonel Hillyard with a Russian officer, with whom she went to St. Petersburg, where she caught a grand duke, who was so far fascinated as to contract a morganatic marriage with her. Since that time Miss Pleyel's adventures have been before the world. Her name has been lost under a score of aliases, but there is no pretence between you and me, and no dispute as to her identity.”
“Captain Fyffe,” said the baroness, “I do not yet think so poorly of you as to believe that you have invented this abominable story, but I can tell you that it is, from beginning to end, a tissue of falsehoods.”
“Pardon me, madame,” I responded, “there is no man living who knows that wretched history half so well as I do.”