"What was in my thoughts then?"
"At the foundation—the inconvenience of your religious convictions as a member of the Roman Catholic Church."
"You are mad," she cried, with a toss of her shapely head and a ringing laugh. But as the laugh died away her eyes filled with sobering perplexity. "At the foundation," she said slowly, repeating my words. "You are a poor thought-reader. What else was I thinking of?"
I paused to give due significance to my next words, and looked at her fixedly as I spoke. "Of your marriage with M. Constans; and that in your church, marriage is a sacrament."
"You are a devil," she exclaimed, with fresh excitement, almost with fury indeed. "Say what you mean and don't torment me."
"The Count has been urging you to marry him of course, and——"
"You have been listening. You spy." The last vestige of her self-control was lost as she flung the words at me.
I paused. I never act impetuously with hysterical people. With studied deliberation I closed my book, having carefully laid a marker between the pages, and looked round as if for anything that might belong to me. Then I rose. Her eyes watched me with growing doubt and anxiety.
"I shall be ready to leave the house in about an hour, Madame," I said icily, and walked toward the door.
She let me get close to it. "What are you going to do?"