“And, in the meanwhile, you meet me, and are the merry little Gabrielle of the old days—eh?” remarked Bindo, placing both elbows upon the marble-topped table and looking straight into her face.
“Do you blame me, then?” she asked. “I admit that I deceived you, but it was imperative. Our encounter has brought back all the past—those summer days of two years ago when we met at Fontainebleau. Do you still remember them?” Her eyelids trembled.
I saw that, though married, she still regarded the handsome Bindo with a good deal of affection.
“I don’t blame you,” was his soft reply. “I suppose it is what anybody else would have done in the circumstances. Do I remember those days, you ask? Why, of course I do. Those picnics in the forest with you, your mother, and your sister Julie were delightful days—days never to return, alas! And so you are really married! Well, you must tell me all about it later. Let’s lunch together at the London House.” Then he added reflectively, “Well, this really is a discovery—my little Gabrielle actually married! I had no idea of it.”
She laughed, blushing again.
“No; I don’t suppose you had. I was very, very foolish to take off my glove, yet if I had kept up the deception any longer I might perhaps have compromised myself.”
“Was it not—well, a little risky of you to go to Beaulieu with me yesterday?”
“Yes. I was foolish—very foolish, Bindo. I ought not to have met you to-day. I ought to have told you the truth from the very first.”
“Not at all. Even if your husband is away, there is surely no reason why you should not speak to an old friend like myself, is there?”
“Yes; I’m known in Nice, as you are well aware.”