"Yes, of myself."
The young diplomat said nothing for a moment or two, he was arranging his ideas—adjusting them to this new and interesting phase of his experience with Madame Darcy.
As a Secretary of Legation is generally the father confessor of his compatriots—he had ceased to be surprised at anything. People may deceive their physician, their lawyer, or the partner of their joys and sorrows; but to their country's representative in a strange land they unburden their hearts.
"Tell me," he said finally, breaking the silence, "just what your trouble is."
"I need sympathy and help."
"The first you have already," he replied with a special reserve in his manner, for he felt somehow that it was hardly fair that she should bring herself to his notice again, when he had almost made up his mind to marry a lady of whom all his friends disapproved. Indeed, in the last few minutes the force of Kingsland's remarks had made themselves felt very strongly, and he especially exerted himself to be brusque, feeling in an odd kind of way that he owed it to Miss Fitzgerald. So putting on his most official tone he added, "to help you, Madame Darcy, I must understand your case clearly."
"Don't call me by that name—give me my own—as you once did. My husband's a brute."
"Quite so, undoubtedly; but unfortunately that does not change your name."
"Would you mind shutting the door?" she replied somewhat irrelevantly. They were, as has been said, in the Secretary's private office, a dreary room, its furniture, three chairs, a desk and a bookcase full of forbidding legal volumes, its walls littered with maps, and its one window looking out on the unloveliness of a London business street.
As he returned to his seat, after executing her request, she began abruptly:—