‘Does this make amends to you?’ she murmured. ‘To me it atones for all’
‘No, no; be careful Mind my hair, you silly darling—mind my hair! Shall you be content to wait for this just now and then? Oh, Paul, Paul, Paul! how hard it is! Go now—go. Quickly! Sip your coffee, Paul, and try to look as little unnatural as you can. She is quicker than I fancied. I’ve always a cigar to offer a departing breakfast guest. Juliette, the cigars.’
Juliette laid down the small portfolio she carried, and pricked away a third time.
‘You love me?’ he said hoarsely.
The sound of his own voice was in his ears, after everything that had happened.
‘I adore you!’ she responded. ‘You know it all now. But duty calls you one way and me another. And oh, Paul, “of love that never found its earthly close, what sequel?”’
‘The very words,’ he cried, ‘that ticked in my brain all night’
‘You must look at the portfolio,’ she murmured. ‘Est tu content de moi?
‘Je t’aime!’ and with fumbling fingers he untied the strings of the portfolio.
And now was Paul Armstrong the tame cat of Madame la Baronne de Wyeth, and earned his title well in many cities, from St Petersburg to Cadiz, and from London to Cairo.