A violent anger eclipsed for the moment all sense of astonishment at her knowledge, or of wonder as to how she had acquired it. All he was conscious of was the indignity, the insult, put upon him by her utter disbelief.
He felt it a task almost beyond his strength to forbear from some such words as men must never say to women, and in the bewilderment of his emotions he was silent.
'You have engaged an actor, once great, to give her lessons in elocution,' she continued, in the same unmoved harmonious tones. 'It is the fashion of the day to have a mistress on the stage. I suppose I cannot blame you for that. As it was I who first suggested the future possibility of a dramatic success for your protégée, it is, perhaps, natural that you should have remembered my suggestions, when you sought the cover of some artistic career for her. Someone has told me that you reserve for me the part of Mæcena to her Roscia (can one feminise the names?), that you intend to have her talents first essayed and pronounced on under my roof; that the world is to be invited to smile at my credulity, or at my good nature, with whichever it may most prefer to accredit me. Women often do such things as this, I know, because they are weak, or because they need indulgence in return. But it is not a rôle which will suit either my temper or my taste. I see the convenience to yourself of your project, but you must pardon me if I do not accept the part you would assign me in it. The world and Mlle. Bérarde will have opportunities for mutual acquaintance and admiration without their first meeting each other in my drawing-rooms. I should not have mentioned the matter unless you had done so first, but I should have prevented the execution of your and of M. Rosselin's intentions!'
She looked at him from under her drooped eyelids, with that critical observation which never deserted her in the most trying hour, or before the deepest emotion. She did not hurry him or dismiss him, only he knew by the look upon her face, that the discussion was, in her view of it, closed irrevocably. But for the sake of the other who was involved in her judgment, he put aside his pride, his offence, and his dignity, and stooped to an appeal.
'I do not know,' he said, and he was sensible that his voice vibrated with fury, as well as with emotion, 'I do not know what steps you may have taken to enable you to tabulate my actions so exactly. I keep no diary, but I have no doubt your facts are correct. But as you put the data which have been given you by some creature you have stooped to employ, they would certainly seem to point to some selfish intrigue on my part, some vulgar use for my own ends of this young girl's illness and misfortunes. It may be even quite natural that you should take such a view of it as this, though it shows that you do not, after all, much understand my character. But I will admit that your suspicions may seem to you just. I will admit that my own reticence has been blameable and unwise, and I do not suppose you will believe how much your own habit of ridicule, of irony, and of cruel scorn, has made me shrink from provoking your malicious comments by any confidences which would seem to you sentimental and melodramatic.'
He paused, hoping for some word from her. But she spoke none. She continued to listen and to wait, in unbroken silence and serenity, her fingers touching the rose at her breast. A momentary sense of rage passed quivering over him. He understood how men may in some moments kill the woman they have loved best.
He restrained his passion with great effort, and tried to keep his words within the compass of ordinary courtesy.
'You do not know, and if you knew you would not care for it, how many a time this story, like many another thought and memory of mine, has been upon my lips, and speech has been stopped in me, merely because I was conscious you would laugh. I am a fool in your eyes, worthy to die with Rolla, to fall with Desgrieux, or any other absurd sentimentalist. I dare say you will even despise me the more if you be compelled to believe that, though I might be the lover of Damaris Bérarde, I am not so, whatever your spies may have told you.'
Her face flushed haughtily.
'Spies! I set no watcher on your actions until you deceived me. When I know that I am deceived I have no mercy. Those who deceive me are outside my pale. I hunt them down. Foolish women can bear to be blinded. I am not foolish, and I do not consent to be so.'