"Very well. Monday, then. You have set the stage. If I must be a puppet for once in my life, so be it. But, I repeat, it's for the last time. Now, for heaven's sake, go ahead and get it off your chest."
"And you will let me go without a word? Otherwise I shall not speak—and I'll leave the room again and not return."
"Very well. I promise."
"I told part of it the other day at Mrs. Oglethorpe's luncheon—I had told her before. But there's so much else. I hardly know how to begin with you, and I have not the habit of talking about myself. But I suppose I should begin at the beginning."
"It is one of the formulae."
"It is the most difficult of all—that beginning." And although she had announced the torpidity of her nerves, her hands clenched and her voice shook slightly.
"Let me remind you that to begin anywhere you've got to begin somewhere." And then as she continued silent, he burst out: "For God's sake, say it!"
"Is—is—it possible that the suspicion has never crossed your mind that I am Mary Ogden?"
"Wh-a-at!"
"Mary Ogden, who married Count Zattiany thirty-four years ago. I was twenty-four at the time. You may do your own arithmetic."