“No,” said de Vere; “how could I?”
“And yet,” she went on, “you loved me, although you didn’t know that I was married?”
“Yes,” answered de Vere simply. “I loved you, in spite of it.”
“How splendid!” she said.
There was a moment’s silence. Mr. Overgold had returned to the table, the empty plate in his hand. His wife turned to him again with the same unfailing tact.
“Take your asparagus to the billiard-room,” she said, “and eat it there.”
“Does he know, too?” asked de Vere.
“Mr. Overgold?” she said carelessly. “I suppose he does. Eh apres, mon ami?”
French? Another mystery! Where and how had she learned it? de Vere asked himself. Not in France, certainly.
“I fear that you are very young, amico mio,” Dorothea went on carelessly. “After all, what is there wrong in it, piccolo pochito? To a man’s mind perhaps—but to a woman, love is love.”