“What are you thinking of?” she demanded, and continued without waiting for a reply, “you strange man.”
“I was thinking how odd it was,” I replied, “that I should have known you all these years by a portrait, that we should finally be thrown together, and that you should be so exactly like the person I had supposed you to be.”
She lowered her eyes, but she did not seem to take offence. I meant none.
“And you,” she answered, “are continually reminding me of an Englishman I knew when I was a girl. He was a very queer person to be attached to the Embassy,—not a courtier, but a serious, literal person like you, Mr. Ritchie, and he resembled you very much. I was very fond of him.”
“And—what became of him?” I asked. Other questions rose to my lips, but I put them down.
“I will tell you,” she answered, bending forward a little. “He did something which I believe you might have done. A certain Marquis spoke lightly of a lady, an Englishwoman at our court, and my Englishman ran him through one morning at Versailles.”
She paused, and I saw that her breath was coming more quickly at the remembrance.
“And then?”
“He fled to England. He was a younger son, and poor. But his King heard of the affair, had it investigated, and restored him to the service. I have never seen him since,” she said, “but I have often thought of him. There,” she added, after a silence, with a lightness which seemed assumed, “I have given you a romance. How long the Baron takes to dress!”
At that moment there were footsteps in the court-yard, and the orderly appeared at the door, saluting, and speaking in Spanish.