“So you think,” said Hugh Lufton, who understood facts better than theories, turning to Greetland, “that Countess Alexia was under the influence of Martindale’s fascinations?”
Greetland shrugged. “It looks like it; though no one even suspected it. But she is a clever girl.”
“Scarcely, if that were the case,” Vaxton objected.
“My dear Monty,” said the drawing-room sage, “no woman is clever in love, although many are perfect geniuses in the matter of marriage. When we talk of a clever woman we eliminate love from the question.”
“This is a strange aftermath of—I suppose—jealousy.”
“Yes; one hardly sees at this stage what the girl can do.”
“Awkward for Count Prosper,” Lufton declared. “He is a very good fellow. For all practical purposes an Englishman.” Which was the highest compliment the speaker felt he could pay the young diplomat; and certainly the sincerest.
“You remember,” Lufton said to Bellairs, “that fellow Paul Gastineau, the K.C.?”
“Gastineau? Rather. Killed in a railway accident in Spain. I know what you are going to say. Yes. He was supposed to be a great admirer of Countess Alexia.”
“Oh, yes,” Greetland replied, with the superiority conferred by an acknowledged omniscience. “I don’t fancy there was much in that, though. At any rate on the lady’s side.”