Eulalie shrugged her shoulders in the salmon-coloured mantle. "Well, I think I hear Aymar's step, so you can easily have me proved a liar . . . or rather, perhaps, learn that the Marquis de Vaubernier, from whom I had the story, is a romancer of the first order."
It was Aymar's step. In a moment more he came in through the long window.
"Your carriage is at the door, Madame," he said coldly to Eulalie. "May I have the honour of conducting you to it?"
But Mme de Morsan was looking down, smiling and silent, contemplating her toe on the edge of the hearth. Avoye's eyes were fixed on her cousin; then she suddenly sat down as if her limbs would no longer sustain her. But it was she who broke the silence.
"Eulalie has been telling me something about you . . . which I do not believe."
"Something," completed Mme de Morsan in measured tones, "which I elicited from M. de Vaubernier—no, not at Aix. As I told you, I did not see him there. It was at Chambéry. You must not blame the old gentleman; in his horror at what had happened to you, Aymar, which he knew, and told me, he let out why it had happened. And now I have incautiously mentioned it to Avoye, since she is so deeply concerned in it, and find that you had decided—wisely, I dare say—to keep her in the dark. Need I say how much I regret——"
"No!" broke in Aymar, standing before her very tall and straight. "No, you need not add a lie to what you have done! Your carriage, as I said, is at the door," and he made a gesture towards the hall. His eyes were blazing.
Eulalie de Morsan looked up at him easily, admiringly. "What I have done, my dear Aymar—how well you look in a rage!—is merely to tell the truth . . . of which you have been sparing!"
"But it is not the truth!" repeated Avoye, in the voice of one who, having been mortally stabbed, denies the wound.
Mme de Morsan rose in an unconcerned manner, and gathered together her possessions. "Well, as Aymar does not seem anxious to have a witness of his answer to that statement, I will leave you together. Au revoir, ma chère."