“We had better talk together now, had we not?”
“I daresay I shall not be the worse for postponing my own breakfast,” I said, with futile sarcasm. “Will you go and make yourself comfortable in the other room. The Matin and the Petit Journal should be on the mat outside. I will get them for you.”
She was ensconced in the only comfortable chair by the window when I returned.
“You have a very sweet view, Monsieur,” she said. “It is like being a sparrow up here among the tree-tops.”
“Or a swallow under the eaves,” I said. “I am of the migratory order, Cousin.”
She lifted her eyebrows a little, at that.
“Pardon me,” I said, leaning back against the piano—for I possessed an indifferent instrument: “but I think we must be consistent. It should be either the whole fiction or none at all. You know I told you I didn’t favour half measures; and if we are to feign familiarity we should use its terms.”
“You said,” she answered, “that there was no danger.”
“I did,” I said frankly; “but that was before I had had an opportunity of studying you.”
“Yes—and now?”—the eyebrows went up again.