She was trembling all over, and as white as marble.
I leaned back and laughed softly. My joy was so immense I could not help it.
"To begin with, I have no mistress, but if I had how can it possibly matter to you, since you hate me, and yourself arranged to be only my secretary."
"You have no mistress!" I could see she thought I was lying ignobly.
"I had one, as of course you know, but the moment I began to think that you might be an agreeable companion, I parted from her, at the time when you saw the counterfoils in the cheque-book, and changed to me from that moment."
"Then—?" she still looked incredulous.
"She has a cousin living in the flat above, married to an anticaire. She comes to see her. You have no doubt met on the stairs. And on our wedding day she came in here, not knowing, to thank me for a villa I had given her at Monte Carlo as a good-bye present. I am very angry that she intruded, and it shall never happen again."
"Is this true?" She was breathless.
That made me angry.
"I am not in the habit of lying," I said haughtily.