“Yourself, your grandfather and himself.”
Her lip curled.
“Proceed, Monsieur. This is most interesting.”
“He said further that you were—forgive me—anxious to marry him.”
I could see Mademoiselle clench her hand. I could mark the flash of her eye.
“That he was anxious to marry you, but that your grandfather refused his consent. And that, with your approval, he had arranged to”—it was a deeply humiliating thing to say with her standing before me like an outraged goddess, but I had to go on—“to compromise you with him so that your grandfather would no longer withhold his consent.”
“And you were to be the means whereby this plan was to be carried out?”
“To my shame I admit it. I agreed to come here and take some article belonging to you of a personal character.”
“My slipper?”
“That or whatever else I could secure. I wore his clothes because he wished the servants to recognize them, and thus be prepared to swear that he was with you.”