“You had better have regretted it before dropping it in. What time was it?”
“About ten o’clock.”
“Then your sweet little letter must have reached M. Fauvel with his early mail; probably he was alone in his study when he read it.”
“I know he was: he never goes down to the bank until he has opened his letters.”
“Can you recall the exact terms of your letter? Stop and think, for it is very important that I should know.”
“Oh, it is unnecessary for me to reflect. I remember the letter as if I had just written it.”
And almost verbatim he repeated what he had written.
After attentively listening, M. Verduret sat with a perplexed frown upon his face, as if trying to discover some means of repairing the harm done.
“That is an awkward letter,” he finally said, “to come from a person who does not deal in such things. It leaves everything to be understood without specifying anything; it is vague, jeering, insidious. Repeat it to me.”
Prosper obeyed, and his second version did not vary from the first in a single word.