Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/89

 at some deeper thing, and held her peace.

"You realize the fact, eh?" Gramont smiled faintly. "I do not wish to offend you, and I shall therefore refrain from saying all that is in my mind. But you have not hesitated to intimate very frankly that you are not wealthy. Some time ago, if you recall, you wrote me how you had just missed wealth through having sold some land. I have taken the liberty of looking up that deal to some extent, and I have suspected that your uncle had some interest in putting the sale through"

The gray eyes of the girl flashed suddenly.

"Henry Gramont! Are my family affairs to be an open book to the world?" A slight flush, perhaps of anger, perhaps of some other emotion, rose in the girl's cheeks. "Do you realize that you are intruding most unwarrantably into my private matters?"

"Unwarrantably?" Gramont's eyes held her gaze steadily. "Do you really mean to use that word?"

"I do, most certainly!" answered Lucie with spirit. "I don't think you realize just what the whole thing tends toward"