We were sitting at luncheon one day about the end of the summer.

Suddenly the Countess arose from her seat, erect, pale with fury, pointing at Suzanne.

"Leave the table, wretched vicious girl! Go to your room! And you, Sir"—to Monsieur de Fouquier—"will leave my house without delay."

There was a moment's intense silence. No one moved. All stared.

"Madame—" began de Fouquier suavely.

"Not a syllable! It is not required. Business can be wound up in a few hours; and I do not doubt I shall find a successor who will serve me not less well than you. Gentlemanly conduct indeed!—handling and embracing my daughter—"

"Mother"—it was Elise who spoke—"are you quite demented?" For one who was not a principal she was inexplicably white and hard.

"Quite, I think," rejoined her sister, not at all as though the chief person concerned, but relieved to have a word to echo.

"Wretched girl. You dare deny—?" Here Mademoiselle Gros nudged and whispered. The Countess walked swiftly round the table to her daughter, and snatched at her left arm. "Deny now, will you? Ha! Ha! Look at your wrists; deny if you can."

We all stared. The white finger-pressure of another hand was unmistakable.

"Deny?" cried Suzanne scornfully, "of course I do. He holding my hand under the table! What an idiotic idea, just the sort of idea you would have. Dear me, how horrible if he had! That's what your filthy little spy thinks she saw through her filthy smoked glasses. The liar!"

"Those marks, then, Mademoiselle, if you please"—her mother sneered confidently—"Be so very kind as to explain."

"Those marks, then, Madame, if you please! I suppose you're not my mother, Madame, if you please, and know nothing of the little habit I've always had of sitting with my hands in my lap, with my left wrist clasped in my right hand, my own amorous right hand? I had finished my dessert, and—yes, I admit it—was sitting in that wicked position. And I will again. And, what is more, I won't have you and your accusations. I'm not a baby in long clothes, and I won't be spied on and shrieked at in that mad way. And I'll squeeze my wrist till it bleeds if I choose to."

Too confident, too explanatory. Lying was not in her line. But de Fouquier preserved an unruffled silence. I was not sure. The Countess too was wavering.

Ferret whispered again. "Not true." We all heard.

"Listen, Madame," said Elise, very hard and pale, "there is one person who will leave this house without delay: that little spy. Order her to go at once: Now!", savagely.

"I won't," piped the Countess, "I am mistress in my own house."

"Then I will," and turning to Mademoiselle Gros, "You have just two minutes to leave this table of your own free will, and till tomorrow to relieve the ChÂteau of your presence. If not, I'll drag you from the room myself, or ring for the servants to help me." They all cowered (except de Fouquier) before Elise.

"Yes, go I will, my poor Countess," squeaked the creature, trying to make valour appear the better part of discretion. "I can hear your daughters' insults no longer." Out she skedaddled, tap-tap-tapping across the wooden floor in the midst of a momentous silence.

Then Elise turned sharply to her mother. "All you have to do is to apologize humbly to Suzanne and Emile. The whole thing is a mare's nest. Have you ever seen anything before to make you suspect anything of the sort? No, and you know you have not. It is utterly unlike my sister. As to Emile, I know him a good deal better than you do—"

"Evidently"; sneering feebly.

"There's a stupid muddle-headed sneer. You can't have it both ways. If it is me you suspect of love-making with our cousin, say so openly and withdraw it about Suzanne. Is it proofs you want? Oh, I can produce authentic marks of loving pressure soon enough." She clutched savagely at her own wrist, scratching it with her nails. "There, mother, dear, there is a spot of blood: now you are convinced. I admit all, all. You may shriek 'Wretched, vicious girl' at me till your voice fails you. But one thing you may not, shall not, do. You shall not talk to my sister like that, not if you were my mother ten times over. That is an order. And for a piece of advice only, don't talk quite so preposterously to Emile."

"You are grown very fond of our cousin all of a sudden; with your 'Emile' this and your 'Emile' that. It is rather sudden."

"Oh, no, my dear mamma: it has been a very gradual affair on the contrary: a passion that has been eating my heart out month by month, day by day, hour by hour. Oh Love, Love. I live in it, it is my joy, my life! Oh God, it is cruel!" With a laugh (or sob) she ran from the table, and hurriedly left the room.

Four of us were left. There was a new unpleasant pause. No sign or look passed between Suzanne and de Fouquier. I was moved by the display of raging hate in this peaceful family, and bewildered to know what it might all mean. The Countess was sniffing tearfully, mopping her eyes with a tiny cambric handkerchief.

"No need for that," cried Suzanne sharply. "You have not yet apologized to Emile."

He broke his discreet silence at last, suavely, full of forgiveness. "No, my dear cousin, pray do not talk to your mother like that. 'Tis I who am sorry. It is not Madame's own fault; I have always felt that Mademoiselle Gros was putting false ideas into her mind, poisoning her outlook, playing treacherously on her maternal fears, slandering each one of us. Now she is going, and we shall breathe a purer atmosphere."

Madame continued to sniffle.

"Don't-know-what-to-believe."

Neither Suzanne nor Monsieur de Fouquier gave her any enlightenment, though she looked furtively up first at one and then the other. Then with an appealing "Help me" glance she turned in my direction. So, instantly, did the others. "Remember, dear Mademoiselle, that we're friends," was the burden of one look: "Beware, young lady, or we'll be enemies" of the other.

"I think it must all be an unfortunate misunderstanding, Madame," I said. "Personally, I noticed nothing." (Judicial, judicious.)

Here FranÇois entered; bald-headed, Punch-faced, beaky-eyed. He looked completely incognizant of the storm that had been raging: exactly as though he had been listening outside the whole time. The united-front-before-servants which we hastened to display would have failed to deceive the dullard which FranÇois certainly was not.

Both Suzanne and her mother began eye-signalling "See you after" to me, the more emphatically when each perceived the other. Suzanne first, I decided: she was my friend, and with her I should get nearer the truth of it all. But as we rose from the table, the Countess laid her hand affectionately on my shoulder, and led me, unavoidably, to her boudoir.