“Very brief. She wrote telling me that she and Yolande would remain in Paris at least a month, and yet they’ve not been here a week!”
“Is this the same Yolande whom you knew in Brussels?” asked Sibyl, turning to me with a glance of surprise.
“Yes,” I answered in a hard voice. Why, I wondered, had this woman brought up a subject so distasteful to me?
“You were her cavalier in Brussels, so I’ve heard,” observed the Ambassador’s daughter. “I was still at college in those days, I suppose. But is it really true that your flirtations were something dreadful?”
“Who told you so?” I inquired, in a tone which affected to scout such an idea.
“Mother said so the other day. She told me that everyone in Brussels knew you had fallen violently in love with her, and prophesied marriage, until one day you suddenly applied for a change of post, and left her. They whispered that it was owing to a quarrel.”
“Well,” I said with a sad smile, “you are really awfully frank.”
“Just as you are with me. You’re always chaffing me about my partners at dances, and making all sorts of rude remarks. Now, when I have a chance to retaliate, it isn’t to be supposed that I shall let it slip.”
“Certainly not,” I laughed. “Now describe all my shortcomings, and make a long list of them. It will be entertaining to the Baronne, who dearly loves to hear a little private history.”
“Now, m’sieur, that is really too bad,” the other protested. “You Englishmen are always so very cynical.”