"I had thought to find in you, my lord, the son of an old friend, like in spirit as in blood to him whom at first I sought to honour in you. I find I have been mistaken, but for your father's sake I will not tell you how much nor by what degrees. Rather I will beg you go at once from my house."
Said Prosper—
"Madam, for my father's sake, if not for mine, you will tell much more than this to his son. Have your words any hint of reference to the Lady Isoult? Speak of her, madam, as you would speak of my mother, for she is my wife."
The Countess shrank back in her throne as if to avoid a whip. She cowered there. Her eyes dilated, though she seemed incapable of seeing anything at all; her mouth opened gradually—Prosper expected her to scream—till it formed a round O, a pale ring circling black. Prosper, having delivered his blow, waited in his turn; though his breath whistled through his nostrils his lips were shut, his head still very high. The blow was a shrewd one for the lady. You might have counted twenty before she began to talk to herself in a whisper. Prosper thought she was mad.
"I should have known—I should have known—I should have known," she whispered, very fast, as people whisper on a death-bed.
"Madam," he broke in, "certainly you should have known had it seemed possible to tell you. Even now I can tell you no more than the bare fact, which is as I have stated it. And so it must be for the moment, until I have completed an adventure begun. But so much as I tell you now I might have told you before. It is shame to me that I did not. Marriage to me is a new thing, love still a strange thing. Had I thought then as I now do, be sure you would never have seen me here without my wife, whom now, madam, I will pray leave to present to you, the Lady Isoult le Gai."
During this narration the Countess had risen slowly to her feet. She was labouring under some stress which Prosper could not fathom. For a little she stood, working her torture before him. Then she suddenly smote herself on the breast and cried at him—"You have done more misery than you can dream." And again she struck herself, and then, coming down from her throne like a wild thing, she shrieked at him as if possessed—"You fool, you fool! Look at me!"
He could not help himself; look he must. She came creeping up to him. She caught at his two hands and peered into his face with her blind eyes.
"Do you love Isoult, Prosper?"
He could hardly hear her. But he raised his head.