He gave a little bow with a few murmured words that she did not catch.
"Your novel interested me," she went on, still stroking the hound, as if the nearness of the great beast helped her.
"As a rule novels bore me, the subjects they deal with have been of no interest to me, but this one gripped me. It is unusual, it is wonderful, but—is it real?" She had spoken dispassionately with the boyish candour that was characteristic, not complimenting an author on a masterpiece, but stating a fact simply, as it appeared to her.
Saint Hubert leaned forward over the back of his chair. "In what way—real?" he asked.
She looked at him squarely. "Do you think there really exists such a man as you have drawn—a man who could be as tender, as unselfish, as faithful as your hero?"
Saint Hubert looked away, and, picking up his pen, stabbed idly at the blotting-pad, drawing meaningless circles and dots, with a slow shrug. The scorn in her voice and the sudden pain in her eyes hurt him.
"Do you know such a man, Monsieur, or is he wholly a creature of your imagination?" she persisted.
He completed a complicated diagram on the sheet of blotting-paper before answering. "I do know a man who, given certain circumstances, has the ability to develop into such a character," he said eventually in a low voice.
She laughed bitterly. "Then you are luckier than I. I am not very old, but during the last five years I have met many men of many nationalities, and I have never known one who in any degree resembles the preux chevalier of your book. The men who have most intimately touched my life have not known the meaning of the word tenderness, and have never had a thought for any one beyond themselves. You have been more fortunate in your acquaintances, Monsieur."
A dull red crept into the Vicomte's face, and he continued looking at the pen in his fingers. "Beautiful women, Madame," he said slowly, "unfortunately provoke in some men all that is basest and vilest in their natures. No man knows to what depths of infamy he may stoop under the stress of a sudden temptation."