Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/303

 understood you then. What you say of me is true. But I did not know what I know now; that you came to me believing me to be a light woman.' And with no change of tone, though more swiftly, more scornfully, she added, glancing beyond him, 'Control yourself, I beg. Madame de Lamouderie is at her window watching us.'

Let her watch them! He blessed her malignancy. It had brought him here; set him in this miraculous solitude face to face with Marthe Ludérac. He saw now why she had sent for him. She would have risked no such encounter had she not thought herself securely armed against him.

'So you heard that. I wonder where,' he said. 'No; I don't mind her; but I'll be careful. That story parted me from you for ten whole days. Whether I really believed it or not I can't say. I think I tried to believe it, because it seemed to part us; to save us. And I've struggled—though you may not believe it of me. Then I found you again, and when I saw you, on that night, it made no difference. Had it been true, or false, my conduct would have been the same.'

Now she was alone with him indeed; more surely alone, despite the watcher at the window, than the other night, for every shield against him was gone. And as he put the truth before her, her eyes, for the first time, under the pressure of his gaze, faltered. She looked away from him. She was terribly white.

'So there's an end to all disguises,' Graham said.

'Let us walk,' said Marthe Ludérac, after a moment.