Part 5 (1/2)
”Miss Frazer? Who is Miss Frazer?” He turned to me. ”Is that the young lady who joined the cla.s.s a week or two ago? I have forgotten her name.”
I was tongue-tied. A conviction was stealing over me that the whole thing was a hideous mistake, that I had been making a spectacle of myself on an unusually handsome scale. The tone in which he put his question was sincerity itself. It was impossible to suspect him of an intention to deceive. At least I should have thought so, though it pleased his wife, apparently, to think otherwise.
”It is odd that you should have forgotten the name of the woman whose heart you have broken.”
”Whose heart I have broken?”
”Though perhaps that is because it has become such a frequent custom of yours to trample your victims under foot that one more or less is hardly worth your noticing.”
”My dear, I do not understand.”
He evidently did not. He looked from one to the other of us as if struck by a sudden foreboding that there was trouble in the air. Such a comical-looking distress came over his peculiar physiognomy that I positively began to feel sorry for him.
”Still, considering that a short time ago she was crying to such a degree that it was feared that she might do herself an injury--all because of you!--it does seem strange that you cannot even remember her name.”
He held out his hands in front of him in the funny way we knew so well.
”My dear, of what are you talking? I wish that you would explain.”
”It seems that that is what she wants you to do. She has sent this insignificant child to demand an explanation.”
He turned to me.
”She has sent you? Who has sent you? Miss Frazer?--who is Miss Frazer?”
”She's one of the governesses.”
”One of the governesses?--which of the governesses?”
”So there are several. It is to be hoped that you haven't broken the hearts of the entire staff. It is plain that you know them all.”
”My dear, I have to meet these ladies in the performance of my duties.”
I thrust in my oar.
”M. Doumer, I've made a mistake, I know I've made a mistake--I'm sure of it. I've been very silly. Madame Doumer, I'm quite sure I've made a mistake; please do let me go.”
”So that's the tone you take on now. It was a different one at first.
I can see as far through a brick wall as most people, and I rather fancy that there may be a brick wall here. Perhaps you expected to see M. Doumer alone.”
”I did; I thought he was a bachelor.”
”Oh-h!--now I begin to see. You thought he was a bachelor. I suppose, M. Doumer, that that is because you have always behaved as a bachelor.
In your profession it is so easy. And with your natural advantages, so much more agreeable.”
”I tell you, Madame Doumer, it's a mistake. It's all my fault. I have been silly. I am so sorry, I beg your pardon and M. Doumer's too.
Please forgive me!--and let me go!”
”Oh, you shall go. And I'm as sure as you are that there's a mistake--somewhere. Exactly where I intend to ascertain. So M. Doumer and I will go with you. I will request to be introduced to this Miss Frazer, and M. Doumer shall make the explanation you require before her face. Then we shall know precisely where the mistake has lain.”