Chapter 8 - Page 2

mode of propounding questions).

"No, I fear not," I replied.

"And concerning this Marquis and Mlle. Polina you know nothing
beyond surmise?"

Again I was surprised that such a categorical question should
come from such a reserved individual.

"No, I know nothing FOR CERTAIN about them" was my reply.
"No--nothing."

"Then you have done very wrong to speak of them to me, or even
to imagine things about them."

"Quite so, quite so," I interrupted in some astonishment. "I
admit that. Yet that is not the question." Whereupon I related
to him in detail the incident of two days ago. I spoke of
Polina's outburst, of my encounter with the Baron, of my
dismissal, of the General's extraordinary pusillanimity, and of
the call which De Griers had that morning paid me. In
conclusion, I showed Astley the note which I had lately received.

"What do you make of it?" I asked. "When I met you I was just
coming to ask you your opinion. For myself, I could have killed
this Frenchman, and am not sure that I shall not do so even yet."

"I feel the same about it," said Mr. Astley. "As for Mlle.
Polina--well, you yourself know that, if necessity drives, one
enters into relation with people whom one simply detests. Even
between this couple there may be something which, though unknown
to you, depends upon extraneous circumstances. For, my own part,
I think that you may reassure yourself--or at all events
partially. And as for Mlle. Polina's proceedings of two days
ago, they were, of course, strange; not because she can have
meant to get rid of you, or to earn for you a thrashing from the
Baron's cudgel (which for some curious reason, he did not use,
although he had it ready in his hands), but because such
proceedings on the part of such--well, of such a refined lady as
Mlle. Polina are, to say the least of it, unbecoming. But she
cannot have guessed that you would carry out her absurd wish to
the letter?"

"Do you know what?" suddenly I cried as I fixed Mr. Astley
with my gaze. "I believe that you have already heard the story
from some one--very possibly from Mlle. Polina herself?"

In return he gave me an astonished stare.

"Your eyes look very fiery," he said with a return of his
former calm, "and in them I can read suspicion. Now, you have
no right whatever to be suspicious. It is not a right which I
can for a moment recognise, and I absolutely refuse to answer
your questions."

"Enough! You need say no more," I cried with a strange emotion
at my heart, yet not altogether understanding what had aroused
that emotion in my breast. Indeed, when, where, and how could
Polina have chosen Astley to be one of her confidants? Of late I
had come