Colonel Berkeley had no knowledge of her whatever, Pembroke had given his arm to Olivia, and they moved off into a quiet corner, where the spreading leaves of a great palm made a little solitude in the midst of the crowd, and the lights and the crash of music and the beating of the dancers' feet in the distance. Pembroke was alternately pale and red. Madame Volkonsky was nothing to him now, but he hated Volkonsky with the reprehensible but eminently human hatred that one man sometimes feels for another. Volkonsky was a scoundrel and an imposter. It made him furious to think that he should have dared to return to America, albeit he should come as the accredited Minister of a great power. It showed a defiance of what he, Pembroke, knew and could relate of him, that was infuriating to his self-love. For Elise, he did not know exactly what he most felt—whether pity or contempt. And the very last time that he and Olivia Berkeley had discussed Madame Koller was on that April night in the old garden at Isleham—a recollection far from pleasant.
"Papa's remark that this meeting was delightful, struck me as rather ingeniously inappropriate," said Olivia, seeking the friendly cover of a joke. "It is frightfully embarrassing to meet people this way."
"Very," sententiously answered Pembroke. He was still in a whirl.
Then there was a pause. Suddenly Pembroke bent over toward her and said distinctly:
"Olivia, did you ever doubt what I told you that
