"You allude to the fortunate accident that enabled me to return the lost necklace to Her Majesty, I presume?" Prue replied, seating herself and negligently pointing with her fan to a sufficiently distant chair. "I assure you I deem myself most happy in rendering a service, which has been only too highly appreciated, but I can not lay claim to brilliancy, for I was but a passive instrument."
"The brilliancy I refer to, dear Viscountess, was not so much the 'fortunate accident' as the ready wit by which you turned so compromising an adventure to such good account," said Sir Geoffrey significantly.
The challenge of his tone and words was unmistakable and Prue responded with more spirit than wisdom.
"You must speak more plainly if you wish to be understood," she answered. "Compromising adventures, you know very well, are not rare in my experience—or yours"—she laughed rather maliciously—"but I seldom turn them to good account. Now, the accident that gave the queen's necklace into my hands—"
"Was the happy result of a little visit to Newgate," interposed Sir Geoffrey, with veiled insolence. "Why beat about the bush with me, dearest girl? I know who gave you the necklace—when he was warned, by you, of the danger of keeping it! and how it came about that he was lucky enough to escape before the soldiers arrived to arrest him."
"What in the world are you talking about, Sir Geoffrey?" she cried, with rather over-acted bewilderment.
"What is every one talking about to-day, but the madcap viscountess, who coaxed the highwayman out of the stolen necklace, and being caught in the trap that was limed for Robin Freemantle, circumvented the soldiers, cozened the Duchess of Marlborough and beguiled the Queen's Majesty. Am I not right in congratulating you on such a brilliant series of achievements?"
"My dear Sir Geoffrey, you have mistaken your vocation," she laughed. "With such an imagination you ought to have been, not a member of Parliament, but a poet! I am quite interested in this romance; surely there is more of it?"
"Considerably more," he went on, lowering his voice and drawing his chair closer to her. "There are those who saw the beautiful shepherdess in close conversation with a masker in red, at the ball; and who now know that he was no other than Robin Freemantle in the borrowed plumes of Beachcombe. You have enemies, fair Prudence—men you have jilted and women you have excelled in wit and beauty—and by some of these you were seen, in company with the Red Domino, very near the queen's tiring-room, from which the necklace was stolen. Can you wonder that when a story is bruited about that Lady Prudence Brooke, in dead of night, was discovered with the necklace in her possession, in the place where Robin Freemantle was looked for, these good people should compare notes about her ladyship's latest exploit, and place their own construction upon it?"
"And you, Sir Geoffrey?" she asked, her thoughtful eyes upon his, "what construction do you place upon this curious rodomontade?"