She leaned towards him, her face eager. “Will you help me, sir? Will you help me to obtain a post as governess in some French family, so that I need not go back to England, but can maintain myself abroad?”
“Is that what you want?” he inquired incredulously.
“Yes, sir, indeed it is.”
“Dear me!” he remarked. “You seem to be a female of great resource. Pray begin your story.”
“In doing so, sir, I am forced to betray the — folly — of my sister. I dare say I need not ask you to — to forget that part of the tale.”
“My memory is most adaptable, Miss Challoner.”
“Thank you, sir. You must know then that I have a sister who is very young, foolish as girls are sometimes, and very, very lovely. Her path was crossed, not so long ago, by the Marquis of Vidal.”
“Naturally,” murmured her host.
“Naturally, sir?”
“Oh, I think so,” he said, with a faintly satirical smile. “If she is — very, very lovely — I feel sure that the Marquis of Vidal would cross her path. But continue, I beg of you!”