But did I say it was the name of the lady who had
written the letter? Indeed, no. You make a slight mistake, my friend.
I bear no malice for it--believe me, upon my heart, no! After a dinner
and a little bottle of champagne, there is nothing more pardonable.
But I will tell you why I read the letter."

"If you please," said Faversham, and the gravity of his tone struck
upon his companion suddenly as something unexpected and noteworthy.
Plessy drew himself together and for the first time took stock of his
host as of a possible adversary. He remarked the agitation of his
face, the beads of perspiration upon his forehead, the restless
fingers, and beyond all these a certain hunted look in the eyes with
which his experience had made him familiar. He nodded his head once or
twice slowly as though he were coming to a definite conclusion about
Faversham. Then he sat bolt upright.

"Ah," said he with a laugh. "I can answer a question which puzzled me
a little this afternoon," and he sank back again in his chair with an
easy confidence and puffed the smoke of his cigarette from his mouth.
Faversham was not sufficiently composed to consider the meaning of
Plessy's remark. He put it aside from his thoughts as an evasion.

"You were to tell me, I think, why you read the letter."

"Certainly," answered Plessy. He twirled his moustache, his voice had
lost its suavity and had taken on an accent of almost contemptuous
raillery. He even winked at his two brother officers, he was beginning
to play with Faversham. "I read the letter to illustrate how strange,
how very strange, are your English girls. Here is one of them who
writes to me. I am grateful--oh, beyond words, but I think to myself
what a different thing the letter would be if it had been written by
a Frenchwoman. There would have been some hints, nothing definite you
understand, but a suggestion, a delicate, provoking suggestion of
herself, like a perfume to sting one into a desire for a nearer
acquaintance. She would delicately and without any appearance of
intention have permitted me to know her colour, perhaps her height,
perhaps even to catch an elusive glimpse of her face. Very likely a
silk thread of hair would have been left inadvertently clinging to
a sheet of the paper. She would sketch perhaps her home and speak
remorsefully of her boldness in writing. Oh, but I can imagine the
letter, full of pretty subtleties, alluring from its omissions, a
vexation and a deligh