Mr. Lovell could have told him, but he refrained.
"I decline to give you any information of any kind whatever."
"You decline?" The Vicomte raised his hand. He would have struck the artist. Mr. Warren interposed to avert the blow.
"He declines for the very simple reason that he has never seen your wife; isn't that so, Gerald?"
Mr. Lovell hesitated. He scarcely saw his way to a denial while the lady was behind the screen.
"Don't talk nonsense, sir! Gerald, why don't you tell the man that you have never seen the woman in your life?"
"I repeat that I decline to give this person any information of any kind whatever."
The Vicomte uttered the words in a kind of strangled screech. His patience was exhausted. He seemed to think that he was being subjected to treatment which was more than flesh and blood could bear. He rushed at Mr. Lovell. Mr. Lovell, probably forgetting himself on the impulse of the moment--or he would have been more careful--swung the Vicomte round against the screen. It tottered, reeled, and, raising a cloud of dust, it fell with a bang to the floor!
For an instant the several members of that little party did not distinctly realize what it was that had happened. Then they saw. There was a pause--a curious pause. Their attitudes betrayed a charming diversity of emotions. The Vicomte, his coat a little disarranged, owing to the somewhat rough handling which he had just received, stood and glared. M. Berigny, more ramroddy than ever, stared. Mr. Warren gasped. Mr. Lovell's quickened breathing, crimsoned cheeks, and flashing eyes seemed to suggest that his breast was a tumult of conflicting feelings. The lady, whose presence had been so unexpectedly revealed, stood behind the fallen screen, with the most charming air of innocence in the world, and she smiled.
It was she who broke the silence. She held out her hand to the Vicomte.
"Ah-h-h!" The Vicomte drew himself away with a sort of shuddering exclamation. "Antoinette! It is you! It cannot be!"
"Why not? She asks why not!" The Vicomte held out his hands, as though he appealed to the eternal verities. "_Traîtresse!_ Once more is woman false and man betrayed!"
The Vicomte's gesture was worthy of the tragic stage--in France. The lady still held out her hand, and still she smiled.