"Monsignore," she said, quietly, "we can now discuss, in private, matters which it was not fitting to discuss before my step-daughter. I must ask you to explain the meaning of certain expressions you have used regarding Donna Bianca Acorari. I do not wish you to be under any misapprehension, so it will be perhaps as well that I should tell you that my brother has had my full consent in wishing to make Donna Bianca his wife. You appear to be aware that my step-daughter has allowed herself to form another attachment in—in an entirely undesirable quarter. I am her guardian, and without my consent she cannot marry until she is twenty-one. This, monsignore, was a special clause to her father's will."
"Madame, I am under no misapprehension," returned Don Agostino. "It is rather you who are so and I regret to be obliged to say what will give you pain to hear."
"Continue, monsignore," said Princess Montefiano, as he paused.
"You ought to know, madame, that if you have been persuaded to sanction a union between Baron d'Antin and your step-daughter, it is because such a union would have enabled the Abbé Roux to continue for some years to farm the rents of Donna Bianca's lands. Briefly, madame, you have been tricked by the Abbé Roux, and, I regret to say, by your brother, who, in return for the abbé's assistance in persuading you to allow such a marriage, engaged not to interfere with his lease of the rents for a certain period, before the expiration of which Donna Bianca would long have attained her majority. The danger of her marrying an honest gentleman of good family, who has been represented to you as an adventurer and a nobody, has been perpetually put forward with the object of gaining your consent to what your own sense of justice, of propriety, madame, would otherwise have forbidden you to contemplate."
Princess Montefiano started up from her chair. "Monsignore!" she exclaimed; "do you know what you are saying? You forget that you are accusing my brother of a villanous action! Philippe," she continued, passionately, "tell Monsignor Lelli that he is mistaken—tell him that he lies, if you like—but do not let me think that you, my brother, have also deceived me—that you could lend yourself to such a horrible intrigue—"
"My dear Jeanne!" interrupted Monsieur d'Antin. "My dear Jeanne!" he repeated, and then he laughed softly.
"It is incredible—monstrous! I will not believe it!" Princess Montefiano exclaimed, with increasing agitation.
Monsieur d'Antin blew a ring of smoke into the air from his cigarette. "Monsignor Lelli is mistaken, Jeanne," he observed, tranquilly; "one can say as much to him without offence. But to say that he lies would not be permissible. It would be—well, an exaggeration. Before replying to his accusation, I should like to ask Monsignor Lelli on what grounds he bases it. He does not, I presume, derive his information from Monsieur l'Abbé Roux?"
Don Agostino looked at him steadily.
"I derive my information from those who have overheard conversations between you and the Abbé Roux—conversations carried on, as you believed, in private—in which your plans were very fully discussed. Can you deny, monsieur, that the arrangement I have named exists between you and the Abbé Roux?"