“I am sorry,” said I, “I do. He perished miserably at the hands of a gang of banditti, such as we call chauffeurs. In a word, he was tortured, and died of it. See,” I added, kicking off one shoe, for I had no stockings; “I was no more than a child, and see how they had begun to treat myself.”
He looked at the mark of my old burn with a certain shrinking. “Beastly people!” I heard him mutter to himself.
“The English may say so with a good grace,” I observed politely.
Such speeches were the coin in which I paid my way among this credulous race. Ninety per cent. of our visitors would have accepted the remark as natural in itself and creditable to my powers of judgment, but it appeared my lawyer was more acute.
“You are not entirely a fool, I perceive,” said he.
“No,” said I; “not wholly.”
“And yet it is well to beware of the ironical mood,” he continued. “It is a dangerous instrument. Your great uncle has, I believe, practised it very much, until it is now become a problem what he means.”
“And that brings me back to what you will admit is a most natural inquiry,” said I. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? how did you recognise me? and how did you know I was here?”
Carefully separating his coat skirts, the lawyer took a seat beside me on the edge of the flags.
“It is rather an odd story,” says he, “and, with your leave, I’ll answer the second question first. It was from a certain resemblance you bear to your cousin, M. le Vicomte.”