"And so you mean that Mr. Stanmer is in a suspicions mood?"

"Well, I mean that his situation is the same as mine."

The Countess gave me one of her serious looks. "Come," she said, "what
was it--this famous situation of yours? I have heard you mention it
before."

"Your mother might have told you, since she occasionally did me the
honour to speak of me."

"All my mother ever told me was that you were--a sad puzzle to her."

At this, of course, I laughed out--I laugh still as I write it.

"Well, then, that was my situation--I was a sad puzzle to a very clever
woman."

"And you mean, therefore, that I am a puzzle to poor Mr. Stanmer?"

"He is racking his brains to make you out. Remember it was you who said
he was intelligent."

She looked round at him, and as fortune would have it, his appearance at
that moment quite confirmed my assertion. He was lounging back in his
chair with an air of indolence rather too marked for a drawing-room, and
staring at the ceiling with the expression of a man who has just been
asked a conundrum. Madame Scarabelli seemed struck with his attitude.