Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/253

 But the old lady, impersonal, dispassionate, was to-day armed with a terrible prescience. Her next words seemed prompted by an unerring instinct. 'I have told you all this because of your Jill. I have felt, watching the events of these last days, that you might wish to withdraw her, tactfully, from an unsuitable intimacy. Marthe herself, I have seen it plainly—and in looking back you will concede it to her—has done her best to withdraw. She has the instinct of what is fitting. But it is not only that. I have my own responsibility towards Marthe. I should feel that I failed in it unless I went further and spoke very frankly to you, as an old woman may to a young man. Marthe lives here under my protection. I have seen that upon you she produces the effect she produces upon other men. And I must ask you to take no advantage of the frailty now fully exposed to you.'

'Advantage?'

Under brows of thunder Graham's eyes darted their dark flames towards her.

The old lady did not quail. 'I have revealed to you—before, I trust, she herself revealed it—that to my protégée the seduction of the other sex is as potent as hers for them. May I trust you not to yield to the appeal of such a proximity?'

Graham stared, blackly, for another moment. Then, violently, he started up from his chair.

'Are you suggesting that I might feel drawn to purchasing Mademoiselle Ludérac's favours?'

Madame de Lamouderie, unmoved, looked up at