Honor! Ah, well, this devil should not see I feared her. Besides, was not the lieutenant of police my friend? He would learn from the concierge whither I had gone. Doubtless he was already searching for me.
So I laughed in her face.
“You deceive yourself, Madame,” I said. “I have friends who know that I came here. They will turn this whole quarter upside down but they find me, and then you will be sent to ornament a gibbet at Bicetre.”
She rocked back and forth, clasping her knees and leering into my face.
“Find you?” she echoed. “Not soon, Monsieur; certainly not in time to save you, unless the earth opens. The police have been this way, and they have passed without finding a trace of you or of me. You would never have discovered me, never have found a trace of me, had I not opened the door that you might walk in. I saw my chance to be revenged—and revenge is very sweet—so I opened the trap and in you came! For you had not behaved nicely to me, Monsieur; you had looked at me in a way that any woman would resent; you had spoken words to me that were not to be forgiven. Well, you are in the trap, and you will never get out. Do you fancy I would have taken the risk of sending for that clothing had I not been certain I could laugh at the police?”
She paused for breath. Now that the gates were opened, that silence of fifteen years was being broken with a vengeance!
“Nevertheless, they will find me,” I repeated resolutely. “You do not know Monsieur d’Argenson.”
“Do I not!” and she laughed horribly, with contorted face. “For fifteen years has he been seeking me, yet he has never found me. Nor will he ever find you, for you are well hidden, Monsieur; so well that Christ may not find you at Judgment. That would be horrible—not to get your reward for sleeping on the hard floor the other night, and leaving that pretty girl to go, pucelle, to our friend, Bri——”
But she did not finish, for, mad with rage, I caught from the floor the vessel that had held the water, and dashed it full at her face. But quick as a flash, she bent aside, and the dish crashed against the wall behind her.
She sat for a moment looking at me, a queer light in her eyes.