She looked at me calmly. I hated her silk gown that shone like a breastplate between us. She brushed away my evasion.
"It is well known that you carried Madame Bertheau's miniature. You were an ardent suitor, monsieur."
Yes, I had been an ardent suitor. I remembered it with amaze. My tongue had not been clogged and middle-aged, in those blithe days, and yet those days were only two years gone. With this woman even Pierre had better speech at his command.
"Madame, who told you this?"
"Monsieur, the tale is common property in Paris."
"May I ask who told you, madame?"
"My cousin, monsieur."
"I thought so."
She looked at me fairly, almost sadly, as if she begged to read my mind. "Monsieur, why should you regret my knowing? It is to your credit that you admire Madame Bertheau. They tell me that she is a woman formed for love, beautiful, childlike, untouched by knowledge of crime or hardship. Monsieur, forgive me. Are you willing—— May I see the miniature?"
The transition in my thought was so abrupt that I clapped my hand to my pocket as if it were still there.