His face was stern and rigid, as he replied: 'Had it been any one else, I might have been surprised; in Madame Du Tertre such conduct appears to me perfectly natural, and what I always imagined her perfectly capable of being guilty of.'
'Such conduct! guilty of!' she repeated. 'This is harsh language, Monsieur Martin. Of what conduct, pray, have I been guilty?'
'Of following me and spying out my actions, madame; of that there can be little doubt.'
'And yet at that you are not surprised,' she said, with a laugh. 'You had so low an opinion of me, that you take "such conduct" as a matter of course. Well, I am not disposed to deny it. I have followed you, and I have, as you call it, spied upon your actions. It is for you to explain them.'
'To explain them!' cried Martin Gurwood, with a burst of indignation; 'to whom, pray? To my conscience I can explain them readily enough; to those who have any claim upon me to ask for an explanation, I can give it. But to you, in what capacity am I to explain it?'
'In my capacity as Mrs. Calverley's friend and agent,' said Pauline, making a bold stroke. 'I am here in her interests; it is by her that I am authorised to do what I have done.'
The shot had told; she saw its effect at once in his blanched cheek and his hesitating manner.
'You have come here as my mother's agent?' he asked.
'I have,' she replied, looking him straight in the face.
'Then,' he said after a moment's pause, 'If you are really and truly her friend, I must ask you in her interests to conceal from her all you have seen; to tell her a story in no way bearing upon the truth, to divert her thoughts and suspicions--for she must needs suspect, if she has employed you, as you say, to watch me in what I do--into some totally different channel.'