"And this," said the Vicomtesse, when I had finished, "is how we stand towards each other?"--
And I dared not raise my eyes from the books before me. The Vicomtesse rose and moved towards the fireplace, where the logs burned brightly, for the spring evenings are cold on the East Coast, and we are glad enough to burn fires. She held my dishonest account in her hand and quietly dropped it into the fire.
"You are right, mon ami," she said, with a smile. "What we owe you cannot be set down on paper--but it was kind of you to try."
Lucille had risen to her feet. Her glance flashed from one to the other.
"Mother," she said coldly, "what have you done? How can we now pay Mr. Howard?"
Madame made no reply, reserving her defence--as the lawyers have it--until a fitter occasion. This presented itself later in the evening when mother and daughter were alone. Indeed, the Vicomtesse went to Lucille's room for the purpose.
"Lucille," she said, "I wish you would trust Mr. Howard as entirely as I do."
"But no one trusts him," answered Lucille, and her slipper tapped the floor. "Alphonse does not believe that he is looking for the money at all. It was for his own ends that he dismissed Mr. Devar, who was so hurt that he has never appeared since. And you do not know how he treated Isabella."
"How did he treat Isabella?" asked Madame quietly, and seemed to attach some importance to the question.
"He--well, he ought to have married her."
"Oh--it is a long story, and Isabella has only told me parts of it. She dislikes him, and with good cause."
Madame stood with one arm resting on the mantelpiece, the firelight glowing on her black dress. Her clever speculative eyes were fixed on the smouldering logs of driftwood. Lucille was moving about the room, exhibiting by her manner that impatience which the mention of my name seemed ever to arouse.
"Do not be hasty in judging," said the elder woman with a tolerance that few possess. "Isabella may have cause for complaint against him, or she may be suffering from wounded vanity. A woman's vanity is the rudder that shapes her course through life. If it be injured, the course will be a crooked one. Isabella is a disappointed woman--one sees it in her face. Of the two I prefer to trust Dick Howard, and wish that you could do the same. We know nothing of what may have passed between them, and can therefore form no opinion. One person alone knows, and that is John Turner. He is coming to stay here with Dick in a fortnight. Ask him to judge."