“If you don’t mind suborning perjury, why should I mind committing it?” he reflected. “Yes. And now, who are you?”
“No; I must have an unequivocal avowal,” she stipulated. “Are you or are you not Victor Field?”
“Let us put it at this,” he proposed, “that I’m a good serviceable imitation; an excellent substitute when the genuine article is not procurable.”
“Of course, your real name isn’t anything like Victor Field,” she declared, pensively.
“I never said it was. But I admire the way in which you give with one hand and take back with the other.”
“Your real name——” she began. “Wait a moment... Yes, now I have it. Your real name... It’s rather long. You don’t think it will bore you?”
“Oh, if it’s really my real name, I daresay I’m hardened to it,” said he.
“Your real name is Louis Charles Ferdinand Stanislas John Joseph Emmanuel Maria Anna.”
“Mercy upon me,” he cried, “what a name! You ought to have broken it to me in instalments. And it’s all Christian name at that. Can’t you spare me just a little rag of a surname, for decency’s sake?” he pleaded.
“The surnames of royalties don’t matter, Monseigneur,” she said, with a flourish.