"The explanation seems to me to be reasonably simple," Annabel said
coldly. "You seem to forget that my sister is--married."
"If she is," he answered, "I am convinced that there are circumstances
in connexion with that marriage which would make a divorce easy."
"You would marry a divorcee?" she asked.
"I would marry your sister anyhow, under any circumstances," he
answered.
She looked at him curiously.
"I want to ask you a question," she said abruptly. "This wonderful
affection of yours for my sister, does it date from your first meeting
with her in Paris?"
He hesitated.
"I admired your sister in Paris," he answered, "but I do not believe
that I regard her now as altogether the same person. Something has
happened to change her marvellously, either that, or she wilfully
deceived me and every one else in those days as to her real self. She
was a much lighter and more frivolous person, very charming and
companionable--but with a difference--a great difference. I wonder
whether you would mind, Lady Ferringhall," he went on, with a sudden
glance at her, "if I tell you that you yourself remind me a great deal
more of what she was like then, except of course that your complexion
and colouring are altogether different."
"I am highly flattered," she remarked, with subtle irony.
"Will you help me?" he asked.
"What can I do?"
"Go and see her. Find out what I have done or failed to do. Get me an
interview with her."
"Really," she said, with a hard little laugh, "you must regard me as a
very good-natured person."
"You are," he answered unconsciously. "I am sure that you are. I want
her to tell me the whole truth about this extraordinary marriage. We
will find some way out of it."
"You think that you can do that?"
"I am sure of it," he answered, confidently. "Those things are
arranged more easily in any other country than England. At any rate
she must see me. I demand it as a right. I must know what new thing
has come between us that she should treat me as a lover one day and a
monster the next."
She leaned back amongst the cushions of her chair. She was very pale,
but she reminded him more at that minute than at any time of "Alcide"
as he had first known her.
"I wonder," she said, "how much you care."
"I care as a man cares only once in his life," he answered promptly.
"When it comes there is no mistaking it."
"Did it come--in Paris?"
"I do not know," he answered. "I do not think so. What does it matter?
It is here, and it is here to stay. Do help me, Lady Ferringhall. You
need not be afraid. No trouble will ever come to your sister through
me. If this idiotic marriage is binding then I will be her friend. But
I have powerful friends. I only want to know the truth, and I will
move heaven and earth to have it set aside."