He smiled, reading her thought. "I try not to be a snob, eh? Well, what I'm driving at is this: I want to know this country of mine, to see it with clear, unprejudiced eyes. We hide our real shames and exalt our false ones. Why should we be ashamed of chasing the dollar? So long as that is a means to the end of happiness, it's all right. But there are some men who see it as an end alone, who can set no finis to their work except the dollar dropping into their pouch. Such a man is your relative, Joseph Maillard—I say it without offence."
Lucie nodded, realizing that he was driving at some deeper thing, and held her peace.
"You realize the fact, eh?" Gramont smiled faintly. "I do not wish to offend you, and I shall therefore refrain from saying all that is in my mind. But you have not hesitated to intimate very frankly that you are not wealthy. Some time ago, if you recall, you wrote me how you had just missed wealth through having sold some land. I have taken the liberty of looking up that deal to some extent, and I have suspected that your uncle had some interest in putting the sale through——"
The gray eyes of the girl flashed suddenly.
"Henry Gramont! Are my family affairs to be an open book to the world?" A slight flush, perhaps of anger, perhaps of some other emotion, rose in the girl's cheeks. "Do you realize that you are intruding most unwarrantably into my private matters?"
"Unwarrantably?" Gramont's eyes held her gaze steadily. "Do you really mean to use that word?"
"I do, most certainly!" answered Lucie with spirit. "I don't think you realize just what the whole thing tends toward——"
"Oh, yes I do! Quite clearly." Gramont's cool, level tone conquered her indignation. "I see that you are orphaned, and that your uncle was your guardian, and executed questionable deals which lost money for you. Come, that's brutally frank—but it's true! We are friends of long standing; not intimate friends, perhaps, and yet I think very good friends. I am most certainly not ashamed to say that when I had the occasion to look out for your interests I was very glad of the chance."
Gramont paused, but she did not speak. He continued after a moment:
"You had intimated to me, perhaps without meaning to do so, something of the situation. I came here to New Orleans and became involved in some dealings with your cousin, Bob Maillard. I believed, and I believe now, that in your heart you have some suspicion of your uncle in regard to those transactions in land. Therefore, I took the trouble to look into the thing to a slight extent. Shall I tell you what I have discovered?"