“And your Eminence is going——?” she asked with truly feminine curiosity.
He looked at her and smiled; she was bewitchingly pretty, smoking her cigarette with that infinite grace so peculiar to Russian women.
“Elsewhere,” he said at last, as if in a vain attempt to check any further questions.
But experienced diplomatist as, no doubt, the Papal Nuncio was, this was a false move, for the word, as used by him, obviously hid a mystery. Madame Demidoff bit her lip; she disliked secrets, until they became her own. His Eminence had, quite unwittingly, aroused her curiosity, and she had decided in her mind, in the space of a few seconds, that the Cardinal should not leave her house to-night before having told her where he was going the next day.
“Elsewhere is a vague word,” she said poutingly, “not to say ungallant. Your Eminence has not accustomed me to such brusque answers.”
Her annoyance, real or assumed, upset the inflammable cleric even more than her archness.
“Believe me, chère madame,” he said, full of contrition, “that were the secret mine I would confide it you immediately, and not attempt to fence with words with you, which proceeding, I own, seems shockingly ungallant.”
“Ah! then you admit that there is a secret connected with your change of plans?”
“Nay! I never denied that, but the secret is not my own.”
“Would it be the first time then that your Eminence will have entrusted me with a secret which was not wholly yours?” she asked.