“You are beautiful, but not discreet,” he answered.
“That is the worst of men,” she said reflectively, as she laid her hat aside—“they always want an impossible combination.”
She looked back at him over her shoulder and laughed, for she saw that she was gaining her point. The quiet of this luxurious house, her own personality, the subtle domesticity of her action in taking off her hat in his presence—all these were soothing a mind rasped and torn by battle and defeat. But there was something yet which she had not grasped, and she knew it. She glanced at the letters on the table before him. As if the thought were transmitted across the room to him, Lory took up an open telegram, and read it with a puzzled face. He half turned towards her as if about to speak, but closed his lips again.
“Yes,” said the baroness, lightly. “What is it?”
“It is,” he explained, after a pause, “that I have had so little to do with women.”
“Except me, mon cousin,” said the baroness, coming nearer to the writing-table.
“Except you, ma cousine,” he answered, turning in his chair and taking her hand.
He glanced up at her with eyes that would appear to the ordinary British mind to express a passionate devotion, eminently French and thrilling and terrible, but which really reflected only a very honest and brotherly affection. For a Frenchman never hates or loves as much as he thinks he does.
“Well,” said the baroness, practically, “what is it?”
“At the club,” explained Lory, “I found a letter and a telegram from Corsica.”