Page:The Unspeakable Gentleman (IA unspeakablegent00marq).pdf/189

 door and you were going to meet them. Do you remember?"

My father smiled, and made a polite little gesture of assumed despair. Then his voice, very slow and cool, broke in on her speech and stilled it.

"Good God, Mademoiselle, one cannot remember everything."

Playing with the hilt of his sword, he stepped nearer, still smiling, still watching her with a polished curiosity.

"I have said so many little things to women in my time, so many little nothings. It is hard to remember them all. They have become confused now, and blended into an interesting background, whose elements I can no longer separate. Your pardon, my lady, but I have forgotten, forgotten so completely that even the stairs seem merely a gentle blur."

And he pressed his hand over his brow and sighed, while he watched her face flush crimson.

"You lie!" she cried. "You have not forgotten!"

My father ceased to smile.

"And suppose I have not," he said. "What is it to Mademoiselle? What are the words of a ruined man, the idle speech