She threw at him a glance of contempt and turned as though to leave the room. Mr. Sabin, recognising the fact that the situation was becoming dangerous, permitted himself no longer the luxury of displaying his anger. He was quite himself again, calm, judicial, incisive.
“Don’t go away, please,” he said. “I am sorry that you have read those reports—more than sorry that you should have attached any particular credence to them. As you know, the newspapers always exaggerate; in many of the stories which they tell I do not believe that there is a single word of truth. But I will admit that Henri has not been altogether discreet. Yet he is young, and there are many excuses to be made for him. Apart from that, the whole question of his behaviour is beside the question. Your marriage with him was never intended to be one of affection. He is well enough in his way, but there is not the stuff in him to make a man worthy of your love. Your alliance with him is simply a necessary link in the chain of our great undertaking. Between you you will represent the two royal families of France. That is what is necessary. You must marry him, but afterwards—well, you will be a queen!”
Again he had erred. She looked at him with bent brows and kindling eyes.
“Oh! you are hideously cynical!” she exclaimed. “I may be ambitious, but it is for my country’s sake. If I reign, the Court of France shall be of a new type; we will at least show the world that to be a Frenchwoman is not necessarily to abjure morals.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“That,” he said, “will be as you choose. You will make your Court what you please. Personally, I believe that you are right. Such sentiments as you have expressed, properly conveyed to them, would make yours abjectly half the bourgeois of France! Be as ambitious as you please, but at least be sensible. Do not think any more of this young Englishman, not at any rate at present. Nothing but harm can come of it. He is not like the men of our own country, who know how to take a lady’s dismissal gracefully.”
“He is, at least, a man!”
“Helène, why should we discuss him? He shall come to no harm at my hands. Be wise, and forget him. He can be nothing whatever to you. You know that. You are pledged to greater things.”
She moved back to her place by the window. Her eyes were suddenly soft, her face was sorrowful. She did not speak, and he feared her silence more than her indignation. When a knock at the door came he was grateful for the interruption—grateful, that is, until he saw who it was upon the threshold. Then he started to his feet with a little exclamation.
“Lord Wolfenden! You are an early visitor.”