Adrian, hardly venturing to understand the woman, looked upon the table, and saw a note which had escaped her attention. She, following his glance, exclaimed:
“What! Another.”
“It is addressed to my wife,” said Adrian, taking it, and losing color as he did so. “Doubtless it contains an explanation of his conduct. I recognize the handwriting as that of a young friend of mine. Did you hear his name?”
“It was an English name. English names are all alike to me.
“Did he call himself Sutherland?”
“Yes, it was like that, quite English.”
“It is all right then. He is but a foolish boy, the brother of an old friend of mine.”
“Truly a strong boy for his years. He is your old friend, of course. It is always so. Ah, monsieur, if I were one to talk and make mischief, I could—”
“Thank you,” said Adrian, interrupting her firmly. “I can hear the rest from Madame Herbert, if there is anything else to hear.” And he left the room. On the landing without, he saw Madame Sczympliça, who, overlooking him, addressed herelf angrily to the old woman.
“Why is this noise made?” she demanded. “How is it possible for Mademoiselle to practise with this hurly-burly in her ears?”
“And why should I not make a noise,” retorted the woman, “when I am insulted in my own house by the friends of Mademoiselle?”
“What is the matter?” cried a voice from above. The woman became silent as if struck dumb; and for a moment there was no sound except the light descending footfall of Aurélie. “What is the matter?” she repeated, as she came into their view.
“Nothing at all,” muttered the old woman sulkily, glancing apprehensively at Adrian.
“You make a very great noise about nothing at all,” said Aurélie coolly, pausing with her hand on the balustrade. “Have you quite done; and may I now practise in peace?”
“I am sorry to have disturbed you,” said the woman apologetically, but still grumbling. “I was speaking to Monsieur.”
“Monsieur must either go out, or come upstairs and read the journals quietly,” said Aurélie.
“I will come upstairs,” said Adrian, in a tone that made her look at him with momentary curiosity. The old woman meanwhile retreated into her apartment; and Madame Sczympliça, who had listened submissively to her daughter, disappeared also. Aurélie, on returning to the room in which she practised, found herself once more alone with Adrian.
“Oh, it is a troublesome woman,” she said. “All proprietresses are so. I should like to live in a palace with silent black slaves to come and go when I clap my hands. She has spoiled my practice. And you seem quite put out.”
“I — Aurélie: I met Mrs. Hoskyn’s brother at the railway station this morning.”
“Really! I thought he was in India.”
“I mean her younger brother.”
“Ah, I did not know that she had another.”
Herbert Looked aghast at her. She had spoken carelessly, and was brushing some specks of dust from the keyboard of the pianoforte, as to the cleanliness of which she was always fastidious.
“He did not tell me that he had seen you, Aurélie,” he said, controlling himself. “Under the circumstances I thought that rather strange. He even affected surprise when I mentioned that you were in Paris.”
She forgot the keyboard, and looked at him with wonder and some amusement “You thought it very Strange!” she said. “What are you dreaming of? What else should he say, since he never saw me, nor I him, in our lives — except at a concert? Have I not said that I did not know of his existence until you told me?”
“Aurélie he exclaimed in a strange voice, turning pallid. She also changed color; came to him quickly; and caught his arm, saying, “Heaven! What is the matter with thee?”
“Aurélie,” he said, recovering his selfcontrol, and disengaging himself quietly from her hold; “pray be serious. Why should you, even in jest, deceive me about Sutherland? If he has done anything wrong, I will not blame you for it.”
She retreated a step, and slowly raised her head and slowly raised her head in a haughtier attitude. “You speak of deceit!” she said. Then, shaking her finger at him, she added indignantly, “Ah, take care, Adrian, take care.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” he said sternly, “that you have not made the acquaintance of Sutherland here?”
“I do tell you so. And it seems to me that you do not believe me.”
“And that he has not passed the night here.”
“Oh!” she cried, and shrank a little.
“Aurélie,” he said, with a menacing expression which so disfigured and debased his face that she involuntarily recoiled and covered her eyes with her hands: “I have never before opened a letter addressed to you; but I will do so now. There are occasions when confidence is mere infatuation; and it is time, I fear, to shew you that my infatuation is not so blind as you suppose. This note was left for you this morning, under circumstances which have been explained to me by the woman downstairs.” A silence followed whilst he opened the note and read it. Then, looking up, and finding her looking at him quite calmly, he said sadly, “There is nothing in it that you need be ashamed of, Aurélie. You might have told me the truth. It is in the handwriting of Charlie Sutherland.”
This startled her for a moment. “Ah,” she said, “the scamp gave me a false name. But as for thee, unhappy one,” she added, as a ray of hope appeared in Herbert’s eyes, “adieu for ever.” And she was gone before he recovered himself.
His first impulse was to follow her and apologize, so simply and completely did her exclamation that Sutherland had given her a false name seem to explain her denial of having met him. Then he asked himself how came she to bring home a young man in her carriage; and why had she made a secret of it? She had said, he now remembered, that she had not heard any English voice except his own since she had come to Paris. Herbert was constitutionally apt to feel at a disadvantage with other men, and to give credit to the least sign that they were preferred to himself. He did not even now accuse his wife of infidelity; but he had long felt that she misunderstood him, withheld her confidence from him, and kept him apart from those friends of hers in whose society she felt happy and unrestrained. In the thought of this there was for him there was more jealousy and mortification than a coarser man might have suffered from a wicked woman. Whilst he was thinking over it all, the door opened and Madame Sczympliça, in tears, entered hastily.
“My God, Monsieur Adrian, what is the matter betwixt you and Aurélie?”
“Nothing at all,’ said Herbert, with constrained politeness. “Nothing of any consequence.”
“Do not tell me that,” she protested pathetically. “I know her too well to believe it. She is going away and she will not tell me why. And now you will not tell me either. I am made nothing of.”
“Did you say she is going away?*
“Yes. What have you done to her? — my poor child!”
Herbert did not feel bound to account for his conduct to his motherin-law: yet he felt that she was entitled to some answer. “Madame Sczympliça, “ he said, after a moment’s reflexion: “can you tell me under what circumstances Aurélie met the young gentleman who was here last night?”
“That is it, is it?