“My congratulations,” answered Lory, shaking hands with Denise in the English fashion. “An inheritance is so nice when it is quite new.”
“And figure to yourself that this dear child has no notion how it has all come about! She only knows the bare fact that some one is dead, and she has gained—well, a white elephant, one may suppose.”
De Vasselot's quick face suddenly turned grave.
“Ah,” he said, “then I can tell you how it has all come about. Though I confess at once that I have never been to Corsica, and have never found myself a halfpenny the richer for owning land there.”
He paused for a moment, and glanced at Mademoiselle Brun.
“Unless,” he interpolated, “such personal matters will bore mademoiselle.”
“But mademoiselle is the good angel of Mademoiselle Lange, my dear, dull Lory,” explained the baroness; and the object of the elucidation looked at him more keenly than so trifling an incident would seem to warrant.
“You will not be betraying secrets to the first-comer,” she said.
Still de Vasselot seemed to hesitate, as if choosing his words.
“And,” he said at length, “they shot your cousin's agent in the back, almost in the streets of Olmeta, and Mattei Perucca himself died suddenly, presumably from apoplexy, brought on by a great anger at receiving a letter threatening his life—that is how it has come about, mademoiselle.”