“On Monday afternoon,” Paul Desfrayne said sharply, as if in positive pain. “I can endure this slavery—this horrible bondage—no longer in silence.”
“On Monday afternoon be it. You know where to find me?”
“No, I do not.”
Madam Guiscardini looked with intent suspicion at him. She hated this handsome young man with concentrated hate, but she respected him profoundly, and she knew he would not utter a falsehood to gain a kingdom. Therefore she was obliged to believe him, though she had previously imagined that his presence in Porchester Square had been due to some plot of which she was the object.
She carefully watched him as she gave her address. It was like a duel to the death, each adversary narrowly eying the movements of the other. To her further mystification, Paul Desfrayne almost sprang back in his amazement when he heard her name the exact place where she lived.
“Where?” he demanded, as if unable to credit his ears.
She coldly repeated the name of the square and the number of the house.
“Why does he seem so astonished?” she said to herself, eying him with a glance akin to that in the yellow orbs of the leopardess a few steps from her. “What is the matter now?”
“On Monday afternoon, then, we will have a further explanation, Madam Guiscardini,” Paul Desfrayne said, mastering his surprise, and raising his hat with the ceremony he would have used to a total stranger.
He left her.