“Yes; let’s go. I’ve something to say.”
The conductor’s baton was tapping the desk as they rose and passed out upon the pleasant lawn beyond. Walking a short distance, they seated themselves under the shadow of a tree, in a nook where there were no eavesdroppers.
“Well, Valérie, what have you to say to me? I’m all attention,” said Egerton, assuming an amused air, and calmly lighting a cigarette.
“Diable! You try to hide the truth from me,” she said, her accent being more pronounced with her anger. “You have warned Hugh; you have told him to beware of me—that my touch pollutes, and my kisses are venomous. Remember what you and I were once to each other—and you, of all men, try to ruin my reputation! Fortunately, I am well able to defend it.”
“Your reputation—bah!”
“Yes, m’sieur, you may sneer; but I tell you, we are not so unequally matched as you imagine. If you have breathed one word to Hugh of my past, I can very easily prove to him that you have lied; and, further, you appear to forget that certain information that I could give would place you in a very ugly predicament.”
“Oh! you threaten, do you?”
“Only in the event of your being such an imbecile as to reveal to Hugh the secret.”
“Then, I may as well tell you that up to the present he knows nothing. Yet, remember, he and I are old friends, therefore it will be my endeavour to prevent him falling into your accursed toils, as others have!” he exclaimed angrily.
“Cursed toils, indeed!” she echoed, with a contemptuous toss of her pretty head. “The idea of a man like you setting himself up as Hugh Trethowen’s protector! It’s too absurd. I wonder whether you would still be friends were he to know the truth about you, eh?”