“Scarcely, monsieur, if you so address me.”
“Ah!” he said. “I do not hold by orthodoxy. And yet there was a time when I was tender of it. You would be madame on a surer title had I had my way.”
“Tell me who you are?” she demanded icily.
“It can hardly interest you. They call me Cartouche.”
Her face fell frowning.
“I have heard of you. I would not be ungracious, sir,” she said. “You saved a life that was once dear to me.”
“I wish I could say I saved it because it was dear to you. I had not seen you then.”
“You can dispense with your compliments, sir. Your reputation is sufficiently well known to me without.”
“Then doubtless mademoiselle is aware that disloyalty to friends is not a part of it. Moreover, it is a human eccentricity to love what we have saved.”
“It is easy to love some people.”