“No, no,” she exclaimed, with a light laugh. “I am extremely glad you’ve come. I retire so late at night that I generally find an afternoon doze beneficial. We women suffer from nerves and other such things of which you men know nothing.”
“Fortunately for us,” he observed. “But then we are liable to a malady of the heart of far greater severity than that to which your sex is subject. Women’s hearts are seldom broken; men’s often are. A woman can forget as easily as a child forgets; but the remembrance of a face, of a voice, of a pair of eyes, to him brighter and clearer than all others, is impressed indelibly upon a man’s memory. Every woman from the moment she enters her teens is, I regret to say, a coquette at heart. In the game of love the chances are all against the man.”
“Why are you so pessimistic?” she asked, raising herself upon her elbow and looking at him amused. “All women are not heartless. Some there are who remember, and although evil and vicious themselves, are self-denying towards others.”
“Yes,” he answered. “A few—a very few.”
“Of course you must be forgiven for speaking thus,” she said, in a soft, pleasant tone. “Your choice of a woman has been an exceedingly unhappy one.”
“Why?” he exclaimed, with quick suspicion. “What allegation do you make against Liane?”
“I make no allegation, whatever, m’sieur,” she answered, with a smile. “It was not in that sense my words were intended. I meant to convey that your love has only brought unhappiness to you both.”
“Unfortunately it has,” he sighed. “In vain have I striven to seek some means in which to assist Liane to break asunder the tie which binds her to Prince Zertho, but she will not explain its nature, because she says she fears to do so.”
“I am scarcely surprised,” she answered. “Her terror lest the true facts should be disclosed is but natural.”
“Why?” he inquired, hastily.