Rosamund gasped softly. “M. le Marquis is a gentleman who, after a life of dissipation, has been reminded by bad health that he has a young and beautiful wife.”
“He dug his pit to fall into it:—he’s jealous?”
She shook her head to indicate the immeasurable.
“Senile jealousy is anxious to be deceived. He could hardly be deceived so far as to imagine that Madame la Marquise would visit me, such as I am, as my guest. Knowingly or not, his very clever sister, a good woman, and a friend to husband and wife—a Frenchwoman of the purest type—gave me the title. She insisted on it, and I presumed to guess that she deemed it necessary for the sake of peace in that home.”
Lord Romfrey appeared merely inquisitive; his eyebrows were lifted in permanence; his eyes were mild.
She continued: “They leave England in a few hours. They are not likely to return. I permitted him to address me with the title of countess.”
“Of Romfrey?” said the earl.
Rosamund bowed.
His mouth contracted. She did not expect thunder to issue from it, but she did fear to hear a sarcasm, or that she would have to endure a deadly silence: and she was gathering her own lips in imitation of his, to nerve herself for some stroke to come, when he laughed in his peculiar close-mouthed manner.
“I’m afraid you’ve dished yourself.”