Windeg, highly pleased, bent his head affirmatively.
"She will accompany us then to-morrow morning. As to the length of her absence, there we approach a subject which is equally painful to us both, but I prefer to touch upon it by word of mouth, particularly as I know our wishes to be identical with regard to the main point at issue."
Arthur seemed about to start from his chair, but he controlled himself and kept his seat.
"Oh! so Eugénie has already been making communications to you?"
"Yes, does that surprise you? Her father would, of course, be the first person in whom she would confide."
Arthur's lips twitched nervously.
"I supposed that the matter would remain between ourselves until the time for action had arrived. I see I was wrong."
"Why postpone things when once a decision has been come to?" asked the Baron quietly. "The present time is most favourable for carrying it into execution. The existing state of affairs here affords the best, the most unexceptional pretext for my daughter's leaving. It need not be known at first that she is leaving definitively. In these summer months, when every one is away from the city, the preliminary steps can be taken with least notice. When an éclat cannot be avoided, it is preferable to give people at once an actual event to talk about. In that way gossip is soonest exhausted."
A long pause followed. Arthur looked again, this time with rather an enigmatical expression, at the door of his wife's apartments; then he turned slowly to her father.
"Did the wish that this affair should be hurried on come from Eugénie herself?"