The young Englishman seemed unwilling to explain his words.
“Oh! nothing,” he said, “or nothing much!”
Then, after a pause, and as if he had just come to a supreme decision, he got up, strode two or three times up and down the room, then standing before the detective with folded arms, he declared:
“Tom Bob, I should by rights be more angry with you than in fact I am, for you have played me a trick, a damnable trick, involuntarily, I am sure of that, but the fact remains, you have played me one of those tricks men find it hard to forgive, you have supplanted me in the affections of a woman I loved.”
The detective gave a gesture of protestation.
“Pooh! my good sir,” he said, “women and their ways! these things are never to be taken seriously.”
“That depends; no doubt, you will tell me I had for ages been courting the princess without winning the smallest favour from her, while it was enough for you to arrive on the scene to become instantly the darling of her heart ... well, be it so! I do not press the point, and you may have noticed this, that I never tried to compete with you. No, luck or ill luck decreed that at that very moment my affections took the field elsewhere....”
Tom Bob heaved a sigh of relief.
“I am delighted to hear it, I should have been grieved to give you pain.”
“Man!” pursued the young man, “you cannot imagine what happened next.”