He was looking straight and stern in her face, with eyes coldly blazing and full of reproof, indignation and condemnation, but no relenting. Ermengarde's spirit rose at the injustice of the implied condemnation; she returned his gaze steadily, unflinchingly, and silently, bracing herself to face the situation and on no account give in.
"Well?" she returned coolly, at the end of a long, searching, unblenching gaze.
"You little fool!" he said, withdrawing his eyes after a time, with a curious little laugh.
"I certainly have been a fool—in more ways than one," she returned calmly. "And how about yourself?"
"I find you in a nice predicament," he replied. "I hear casually yesterday that you are turned out of your hotel, treating the matter as a joke, and relating it as an amusing story to absolute strangers—turned out—how can I say it, Ermengarde? for silly—for compromising intimacy—ugh!—with the hotel-keeper's daughter's fiancé——"
"Really? Much obliged for your kind interest in my affairs. Slater's detectives? Most ingenious. And, of course, you believed all you were told by your Sherlock Holmes's and Paul Prys."
"And," he continued, ignoring these sarcasms, "to-day I come personally to see for myself——"
"In the disguise of a Polish Anarchist——"
"And find you with that accursed young French idiot at your feet——"
"Young French idiots fall at people's feet on very small provocation."