“Your horrid family will hot be called upon to tolerate me!” Juliana replied, quivering with anger. “I cannot conceive how I could have been fool enough to fancy myself in love with you. Faith, I believe I pitied you, and mistook that for love. When I think what a mésalliance I have escaped, I vow I find myself shuddering!”
“You should thank God, as I do, ma’am, that you have been saved from an alliance that could only end in the lasting misery of us both. I beg leave to bid you farewell, and I trust, ma’am, that you will be fortunate enough to be solicited in marriage next time by a man who will be blind to the folly and conceit of your nature.” With which parting shot Mr. Comyn executed a low bow, and went downstairs without one backward look.
Rejecting the lackey’s offer to summon a chair, he left the Hôtel Saint-Vire, and strode off down the street in the direction of his own lodging. He had not covered more than half the distance, when all at once he seemed to change his mind, and retraced his steps till he came to a side road. He turned down this, traversed a broad place and arrived presently, and for the second time that evening, at the Hôtel Charbonne.
The lackey who opened the door to him had ushered the Marquis of Vidal out not twenty minutes earlier, and his well-trained countenance betrayed surprise. Upon being asked if Miss Challoner were still up, he said cautiously that he would inquire, and left Mr. Comyn (whom he began to suspect of clandestine intentions) to kick his heels in the hall.
Miss Challoner, who had been sitting in a brown study, by the fire, started when the servant came in, and glanced at the clock. The hands pointed to a quarter past midnight.
“The Englishman who was here first to-night, mademoiselle, is here again,” announced the lackey severely.
“Mr. Comyn?” she asked, surprised.
“Yes, mademoiselle.”
Wondering very much what could have happened to bring him back, Miss Challoner requested the man to admit him. The lackey withdrew, and said later to his colleagues downstairs that the customs of English demoiselles were enough to shock a decent Frenchman.
Meanwhile Mr. Frederick Comyn stood once more before Miss Challoner, and said with less than his usual precision: “I beg pardon, ma’am, to intrude upon you at this hour, but I have a proposal to make to you.”