"Speaking of Bardelys, Monsieur de Lesperon--"
"My dear Chevalier, we were no longer speaking of him."
He smiled darkly. "Let us speak of him, then."
"But are there not a thousand more interesting things that we might speak of?"
This he took for a fresh sign of fear, and so he pressed what he accounted his advantage.
"Yet have patience; there is a point on which perhaps you can give me some information."
"Impossible," said I.
"Are you acquainted with the Duchesse de Bourgogne?"
"I was," I answered casually, and as casually I added, "Are you?"
"Excellently well," he replied unhesitatingly. "I was in Paris at the time of the scandal with Bardelys."
I looked up quickly.
"Was it then that you met her?" I inquired in an idle sort of way.
"Yes. I was in the confidence of Bardelys, and one night after we had supped at his hotel--one of those suppers graced by every wit in Paris--he asked me if I were minded to accompany him to the Louvre. We went. A masque was in progress."
"Ah," said I, after the manner of one who suddenly takes in the entire situation; "and it was at this masque that you met the Duchesse?"
"You have guessed it. Ah, monsieur, if I were to tell you of the things that I witnessed that night, they would amaze you," said he, with a great air and a casual glance at Mademoiselle to see into what depth of wonder these glimpses into his wicked past were plunging her.
"I doubt it not," said I, thinking that if his imagination were as fertile in that connection as it had been in mine he was likely, indeed, to have some amazing things to tell. "But do I understand you to say that that was the time of the scandal you have touched upon?"
"The scandal burst three days after that masque. It came as a surprise to most people. As for me--from what Bardelys had told me--I expected nothing less."
"Pardon, Chevalier, but how old do you happen to be?"
"A curious question that," said he, knitting his brows.
"Perhaps. But will you not answer it?"
"I am twenty-one," said he. "What of it?"
"You are twenty, mon cousin," Roxalanne corrected him.
He looked at her a second with an injured air.
"Why, true--twenty! That is so," he acquiesced; and again, "what of it?" he demanded.
"What of it, monsieur?" I echoed. "Will you forgive me if I express amazement at your precocity, and congratulate you upon it?"
His brows went if possible closer together and his face grew very red. He knew that somewhere a pitfall awaited him, yet hardly where.