I bowed, and she stamped her foot angrily at the gesture.
“You know your life would not be worth a moment’s purchase.”
“You have done me the honour to show how worthless it is.”
“You twist everything I say to you,” she cried impatiently. “You will give me your word of honour that you will not go out.”
“You are very inconsistent. At one moment you all but order me out of your house; at the next you prevent my going. It is absurd.”
“When I told you you could leave, we did not know of the danger.”
“What is my life to you?” I took a leaf out of her book and asked the question in a tone as cold and hard as she had used, while I looked at her very steadily. She met my look but did not answer my question. “You think me a spy, what then——”
“I do not think you a spy, monsieur. You know that. You heard me tell M. Boreski that I would answer for you. You can be bitterly unjust.”
So there was some feeling after all under her cold manner.
“We will not speak of injustice, mademoiselle,” I said, in the same tone. “But I had forgotten Boreski. I owe this to him even more than to you perhaps; so that I cannot pass my word not to go out. He would not object—nor his Duchess either.”