He smiled.
"Are you going to warn me once more against Herr Freudenberg?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"If you do not know your danger," she continued, "you would be too great a fool to be worth warning. Remember that Freudenberg came from Berlin as fast as express trains and his racing-car could bring him, the moment he read the first."
"I have already had a brief but somewhat unpleasant interview with him," Julien remarked.
"I congratulate you," she went on. "Unpleasant interviews with Herr Freudenberg generally end differently. Now listen to me. I have a proposition to make. There is one house in Paris where you will be safe—mine. I offer you its shelter. Come there and finish your work."
Julien made no reply. He sipped his coffee for a moment. Then he turned slowly round.
"Madame Christophor," he said, "once you told me that you disliked and distrusted all men. Why, then, should I trust you?"
She winced a little, but her tone when she answered him was free of offense.
"Why should you, indeed?" she replied. "Yet you should remember that the man against whose cherished schemes your articles are directed is the man whom I have more cause to hate than any other in the world."