"I really do not know, monsieur, by what right you interfere in a conversation about what does not concern you," Cabouat manages to reply, speaking thickly. "May I ask who----"
Edgar hands him his card. The other gentlemen are about to withdraw, but Edgar says, "What I have to say to Monsieur de Hauterive all are welcome to hear: the more witnesses I have the better I shall be pleased. I wish to call him to account for a slander, as vile as it is absurd, which he has dared to repeat, with regard to a young lady, an intimate friend of my family. You said, monsieur----"
"I said what every one knows, what ladies of the highest rank will confirm, what the Princess Oblonsky has long been aware of, and the proof of which I obtained to-day."
"Might I beg to know in what this said proof consists?" Edgar asks, contemptuously.
Monsieur de Hauterive, with an evil smile upon his puffy red lips, draws from his vest-pocket a golden chain to which is attached a crystal locket containing a four-leaved clover.
With a hasty movement Edgar takes the trinket from him, and searches for the star engraved upon the crystal.
"You know the bracelet?" asks de Hauterive.
"Yes," says Edgar.
"I found it on the staircase of Prince Capito's lodgings. When I rang the Prince's bell his servant informed me that the Prince was not at home. As I was perfectly aware that he had been confined to a lounge for two days with a sprained ankle, I naturally supposed that the Prince had special reasons for wishing to receive no one. What conclusion do you draw?"
Edgar's tongue is very dry in his mouth, but he instantly rejoins, "My conclusion is that Mademoiselle de Meineck, visiting a friend, a lady, who, as I happen to know, has lodgings in that house, lost her bracelet on the landing, and that Prince Capito has no desire to receive Monsieur de Hauterive."