"Ah! my dear Count, here is the tea at last," I heard our hostess say, and then she added solicitously, "I have not seen you for so long. Why have you denied yourself to your friends? You have quite gotten over your accident of the spring? I read about it in the papers at the time. Such a noble thing to have stopped those horses. You must tell me about it. How did it happen?"
I could not help turning to give Pushkin one look, and he hesitated and stammered. I came out filled with a new sense of what was meant by the curses against the Pharisees. As I was walking along I ran into Wolffert.
"Ah! You are the very man," he exclaimed. "It is Providence! I was just thinking of you, and you ran into my arms. It is Fate."
It did seem so. Mrs. Argand and her "dear count" had sickened me. Here, at least, was sincerity. But I wondered if he knew that Miss Leigh was within there.
XXIV
WOLFFERT'S MISSION
Wolffert naturally was somewhat surprised to see me come sallying forth from Mrs. Argand's; for he knew what I had not known when I called there, that she was the real owner of "The Argand Estate."
I gave him an account of my interview with the lady.
"I was wondering," he said, laughing, "what you were doing in there after having beaten her in that suit. I thought you had taken your nerve with you. I was afraid you had fallen a victim to her blandishments."