Then she turned her lovely face to the young man she had
duped so cleverly.
"How do you like Rome?" she asked,
"I cannot talk commonplace to you, Lady Lisle," he said; "I have come
from England purposely to see you,"
She looked slightly impatient.
"Ah," she replied. "Of course I am very much obliged to you; but you
must have been terribly imprudent. Could you not have managed without
being discovered in that suspicious attitude? I was so grievously
distressed. You are too quixotic--you seek needless dangers."
That was the extent of her gratitude to the man who had saved her
reputation, character, and fair fame.
"I did not compromise you," he said. "I preferred imprisonment to that."
"Yes; but it was quixotic; there was no need for anything of the kind."
"I am very sorry to have erred from excess of zeal," he replied,
sarcastically. "It is a comfort to me to think that I shall not so
offend again."
"I hope," she said, more anxiously, "that it will not injure you--that
no one will know about it. It was really too shocking. Prison for a
young man of your position! It was absurd."
"I thought so myself, before I came out; it was absurd; but you will be
comforted to know, Lady Amelie, that no one seems to have known of it
but my mother, Lady Carruthers, and my lawyer, Mr. Forster. So far as
the world is concerned, I am safe."
The prince returned, looking slightly jealous, and then Basil amused
himself, after a bitter fashion.
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