Canaples started.
“Surely such affairs are not for women to meddle with,” he cried. “Moreover, M. de Luynes has already given me all details of the affair.”
Her eyes grew very wide at that.
“He has told you? Yet you invite him hither?” she exclaimed.
“M. de Luynes has naught wherewith to reproach himself, nor have I. Those details which he has given me I may not impart to you; suffice it, however, that I am satisfied that his conduct could not have been other than it was, whereas that of my son reflects but little credit upon his name.”
She stamped her foot, and her eyes, blazing with anger, passed from one to the other of us.
“And you—you believe this man's story?”
“Yvonne!”
“Possibly,” I interposed, coolly, “Mademoiselle may have received some false account of it that justifies her evident unbelief in what I may have told you.”
It is not easy to give a lie unless you can prove it a lie. I made her realise this, and she bit her lip in vexation. Dame! What a pretty viper I thought her at that moment!