“They say one judges others by one’s self,” I laughed. “Count Godensky, if you throw out such lurid hints about my poor, fat Marianne, I shall begin to wonder if it’s not you who are the spy!”
“Since you trust your woman so implicitly, then,” he went on, “I’ll tell you what you want to know. The document I speak of is the one you took out of the Foreign Office the other day, when you called on your—friend, Monsieur le Vicomte du Laurier.”
“Dear me!” I exclaimed. “You say you want to be my friend, yet you seem to think I am a kleptomaniac. I can’t imagine what I should want with any dry old document out of the Foreign Office, can you?”
“Yes, I can imagine,” said Godensky drily.
“Pray tell me then. Also what document it was. For, joking apart, this is rather a serious accusation.”
“If I make any accusation, it’s less against you than du Laurier.”
“Oh, you make an accusation against him. Why do you make it to me?”
“As a warning.”
“Or because you don’t dare make it to anyone else.”
“Dare! I haven’t accused him thus far, because to do so would brand your name with his.”