Anna the Adventuress

"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."