"Of course you encouraged me to do so when last we met in Nantes."
"What? Still resentful?"
"I am never resentful. You should know that." He expressed one of his vanities. He loved to think himself a Stoic. "But I still bear the scar of a wound that would be the better for the balm of your retraction."
"Why, then, I retract, Andre. And now tell me."
"Yes, a self-seeking retraction," said he. "You give me something that you may obtain something." He laughed quite pleasantly. "Well, well; command me."
"Tell me, Andre." She paused, as if in some difficulty, and then went on, her eyes upon the ground: "Tell me--the truth of that event at the Feydau."
The request fetched a frown to his brow. He suspected at once the thought that prompted it. Quite simply and briefly he gave her his version of the affair.
She listened very attentively. When he had done she sighed; her face was very thoughtful.
"That is much what I was told," she said. "But it was added that M. de La Tour d'Azyr had gone to the theatre expressly for the purpose of breaking finally with La Binet. Do you know if that was so?"
"I don't; nor of any reason why it should be so. La Binet provided him the sort of amusement that he and his kind are forever craving..."
"Oh, there was a reason," she interrupted him. "I was the reason. I spoke to Mme. de Sautron. I told her that I would not continue to receive one who came to me contaminated in that fashion." She spoke of it with obvious difficulty, her colour rising as he watched her half-averted face.
"Had you listened to me..." he was beginning, when again she interrupted him.
"M. de Sautron conveyed my decision to him, and afterwards represented him to me as a man in despair, repentant, ready to give proofs--any proofs--of his sincerity and devotion to me. He told me that M. de La Tour d'Azyr had sworn to him that he would cut short that affair, that he would see La Binet no more. And then, on the very next day I heard of his having all but lost his life in that riot at the theatre. He had gone straight from that interview with M. de Sautron, straight from those protestations of future wisdom, to La Binet. I was indignant. I pronounced myself finally. I stated definitely that I would not in any circumstances receive M. de La Tour d'Azyr again! And then they pressed this explanation upon me. For a long time I would not believe it."