“What is it you would of me, dear lady?” he asked.
“I would that you should go with me to the French Ambassador, and help me to explain the—now don’t say you won’t, Mr. Harleston—”
“My dear Mrs. Clephane, it is—” he began.
“It is not impossible!” she declared. “Why won’t you do it?”
“For your sake as well as for my own,” he explained. “America and France are not working together in this matter, and for me to accompany you would result simply in your being obliged to explain me as well as the letter, besides leading to endless complications and countless suspicions. Didn’t I expound this last evening?”
“You did—also much more; but I’ve thought over it almost the whole night, and I simply must get this miserable letter off my mind. Perhaps Mrs. Spencer has forestalled me with the Ambassador and has given him such a tale as will insure my being shown the door; nevertheless I’ll risk it.”
“Why don’t you get in communication with your friend Madame Durrand,” Harleston suggested “and have her, if she hasn’t done so already, identify you to the Marquis?”
“I shall, if the Marquis is sceptical. I’ll admit that I’m pitiably foolish, but I don’t want Mrs. Durrand to know how I’ve bungled her matter until the bungle is corrected.”
“I can quite understand,” said Harleston gently.
“Oh, I know you are right,” she murmured, “yet I’m afraid to go alone.”