"I was quite satisfied," Lady Mary answered. "I thought it was really very kind of him to take the trouble."
"Indeed!" Rochester remarked drily. "I must say, Mary, that I gave you credit for greater perspicuity. The man is an intriguer. Naturally, he was only too anxious to be of service to so charming a lady."
Lady Mary raised her eyebrows, but did not answer.
"I might add," Rochester continued, "that however satisfactory our present relations may seem to you, I still claim the privilege of being able to assist my wife in any difficulty in which she may find herself."
"Further," Rochester said, "I resent the interference of any third party in such a matter. You will remember this?"
"I will remember it," Lady Mary said. "Still, the circumstances being as they are, you can scarcely blame me for having been civil to him to-day. Besides, you must admit that he is clever."
"Clever! Oh! I've no doubt that he is clever enough," Rochester answered, impatiently. "Nowadays, all you women seem as though you can only be attracted by something freakish--brains, or peculiar gifts of some sort."
"My dear Henry," she said, "you are not exactly a fool yourself, are you? And then you must remember this. Bertrand Saton's cleverness is the sort of cleverness which appeals to women. We can't help our natures, I suppose, and we are always attracted by the mysterious. We are always wanting to know something which other people don't know, something of what lies behind the curtain."
"It is a very dangerous curiosity," Rochester said. "You are liable to become the prey of any adventurer with a plausible manner, who has learned to talk glibly about the things which he doesn't understand. I'll get out here, if I may," he added, "and take a short cut across the Park to my club. Mary, if you want to oblige me, for Heaven's sake don't run this fellow! He gets on my nerves. I hate the sight of him."
Lady Mary turned towards her husband with a faint, curious smile as the carriage drew up.
"You had better talk to Pauline," she said. "He is more in her line than mine."
Rochester walked across the Park a little gloomily. His wife's last words were ringing in his ears. For the first time since he could remember, a little cloud had loomed over his few short hours with Pauline. She had resented some contemptuous speech of his, and as though to mark her sense of his lack of generosity, she had encouraged Saton to talk, encouraged him to talk until the other conversation had died away, and the whole room had listened to this exponent of what he declared to be a new science. The fellow was a _poseur_ and an impostor, Rochester told himself vigorously. He knew, he was absolutely convinced that he was not honest.