“What right have you got to tell this woman I had accepted her invitation, when you never spoke to me about it?”
“But!” she said, with a small protesting gasp—“I was sure you would be delighted! It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be! I felt sure you’d jump at the opportunity!”
“Opportunity!” he jeered. “Opportunity for what? Opportunity to let you tell this woman a pack of lies about me, and try to work her with some trick or dodge that you’ve got up your sleeve!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, with quiet dignity.
“Oh, yes, you have!” he snarled. “You know very well what I’m talking about. You’ve told these lying stories and misrepresented things to people ever since I met you, but you’ve gone too far this time. What the hell do you mean by telling this woman that I am a good friend of her son’s and met him in America?” He picked up the letter and shook it in her face again. “What do you mean by telling her such a lie as that?”
“Lie!” Her brows were lifted with an air of pained surprise. “Why, my boy, you told me that you did know her son.”
“I told you!” he fairly screamed. “I told you nothing! I never knew the woman had a son until I got this letter.”
“Listen, my friend,” the Countess spoke gently and patiently as she would speak to a child. “Think back a little, won’t you—?”
“Think back my eye!” he said rudely. “There’s nothing to think back about. It’s another lying story you made up on the spur of the moment, and you know it!”
“Don’t you remember,” she went on in the same quiet and patient voice, “—don’t you remember telling me you were a student at Harvard University?”
“Yes, I did tell you that. And that was true. What has that got to do with knowing this woman’s son?”
“Wait!” she said quietly. “Don’t you remember telling me that you were there at Harvard when Marshal Foch made his visit to America?”
“Yes, I did tell you that.”
“And that you saw him when he visited the university? You told me that, you know.”
“Of course I did! I did see him. Everyone else saw him, too. He stood on the steps of the library with his aides, and saluted while they fired the cannon off!”
“Ah!—With his aides,
