“I trust that madame has not found me indiscreet,” he said earnestly. “If I have been, I must crave forgiveness, because I am so unused to English manners.”
“I don’t think any one need blame you for indiscretion, providing that Muriel does not object.”
“Object? I do not follow you,” he said.
“Well, she may object to her name being bandied about as a woman with whom you are carrying on an open flirtation.”
“You appear to blame me for common civility to her,” he observed. “I cannot, somehow, understand madame of late. She has so changed.”
“Yes,” she answered with a bitter smile; “I have grown older—and wiser.”
“Wisdom always adds charm to a woman,” he replied, endeavouring to turn her sarcasm into a compliment.
“And age commands respect,” she answered.
He laughed uneasily, for he knew well her quick and clever repartee.
“I have been wishing to have a word with madame for a long time,” he said, at last breaking a silence that had fallen between them. “You have pointedly avoided me for several weeks. Have I given you offence? If so, I beg a thousand pardons.”