“Then perhaps the waltz after that.”
Bromley looked steadily at the Count, in a manner the latter did not seem to admire.
“Oh yes, yes,” almost screamed Constance, whose countenance during this scene had betrayed the emotion she underwent.
Bromley, with a slight bow, turned away. He cannot, this time, deny his knowledge of her being engaged to me.
He directed his steps to the room used as a theatre, which abutted on the garden. A verandah outside was covered in for a greenroom. The large oriel window was to serve as a stage. Entering the house by the ordinary doorway, he proceeded to the body of the theatre. He arranged a few of the ornaments, and then sat down to muse.
There is certainly nothing so discreditable as eavesdropping. Nothing can justify it, and no possible excuse can be alleged in palliation of such an offence; but in this life the best of us occasionally commit an unjustifiable action. We have all of us said foolish things which, in the retirement of our bed-clothes, flash across us, and make us burn with shame. We have all put up from friends with affronts which we should have resented; for, alas! in this age we are as afraid of being called tetchy as of being considered dishonourable.
We have all of us, except myself and you, kind reader—we have all of us, at least once in our lives, been the authors of some little act which Paley would not have approved, and Butler would have refused to ratify.
So, on this occasion, Bromley was guilty of a great moral offence. He heard voices—voices not unknown to him—and he listened.
“Not dancing, Achille?” spoke a voice in French.
“The dancing is suspended for a tombola, and I come to pay my homage to my sister.”