“I know her father very well,” she continued, disregarding the visible offence and suffering with which he heard her; “he has sometimes spoken of her to me. He is not very scrupulous. Don’t you think there may have been some misunderstanding, some misrepresentation, some intentional mischief?”
Vanderlin, with increasing difficulty, controlled his anger and his emotion.
“I do not discuss these matters,” he said with great chillness. “Allow me, madame, to remind you that the privilege of your acquaintance is to me a very recent honor.”
“And you think me very intrusive and insupportable? Oh! I quite understand that. But I have heard things—and it seems a pity—you are not old enough to mope all by yourself like this; and if there was any mistake?”
“There was none.”
He said it between his teeth; the recollections she evoked were fraught for him with intolerable torture, and he could have taken this intruder by her shoulders and thrust her out of his presence if he had not been restrained by the habits and self-command of a man of the world.
“But she ruins your life. You do not forget her?” said his unwelcome visitant.
“I shall not replace her, madame,” replied Vanderlin curtly, weary of the cross-examination, and wondering, half divining, what the scope of it might be.
“Ah, there you are so right!” Mouse murmured. “How can the ruling of a judge undo what is done, efface what is written on the heart, or make the past a tabula rasa? You think me an impertinent, tiresome person, I am sure, but I must say to you how glad, how very glad I should be, if I could ever prove to you that you wronged the Countess zu Lynar.”
“Why do you speak of such things?” said Vanderlin, his self-control momentarily deserting him. “Does one put out the light of one’s life, of one’s soul, on mere suspicion? You do not know what you are saying. You torture me. You will make me forget myself. Be silent, I tell you; be silent!”