“We have now to say something of Vincent Favoral’s affairs.”
An attorney who is defending the interests of a client is neither calmer nor cooler than Mme. de Thaller at this moment.
“Do the affairs of my husband’s cashier concern me, then?” she said with a shade of irony.
“Yes, madame, very much.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“I know it from excellent sources, because, on my return from Louveciennes, I called in the Rue du Cirque, where I saw one Zelie Cadelle.”
He thought that the baroness would at least start on hearing that name. Not at all. With a look of profound astonishment,
“Rue du Cirque,” she repeated, like a person who is making a prodigious effort of memory,—“Rue du Cirque! Zelie Cadelle! Really, I do not understand.”
But, from the glance which M. de Tregars cast upon her, she must have understood that she would not easily draw from him the particulars which he had resolved not to tell.
“I believe, on the contrary,” he uttered, “that you understand perfectly.”