"Stuff!" she exclaimed proudly. "Am I a child?"
"You are a woman, and should be shielded from the sharp edges of life."
"Ah!" she murmured "Not all men have thought so. And I wish you wouldn't talk like that."
"Nevertheless, I think like that," I said. "And I'm really anxious to save you from unnecessary annoyance."
"Then I insist that you shall tell me," she replied inconsequently. "I will not have you adopt that attitude towards me. Do you understand? I won't have it! I'm not a Dresden shepherdess, and I won't be treated like one—at any rate, by you. So there!"
I was in the seventh heaven of felicity.
"If you will have it, you have been poisoned."
I told her of my suspicions, and how they had been confirmed by Yvette's avowal. She shivered, and then stood up and came towards me.
"Do you mean to say that Carlotta Deschamps and my own maid have conspired together to poison me simply because I am going to sing in a certain piece at a certain theatre? It's impossible!"
"But it is true. Deschamps may not have wished to kill you; she merely wanted to prevent you from singing, but she ran a serious risk of murder, and she must have known it."