"We shall make a noise, you will be nicely placed then. Why are you frightened? Aren't we good friends? I want to know who replaces me, it's legitimate—Come, I will help you—It's Monsieur de Mussy whose grief has touched you."
She did not answer. She bowed her head beneath such an interrogatory.
"It isn't Monsieur de Mussy? The Duke de Rozan, then? Really, nor he either? Perhaps the Count de Chibray? Not even he?"
He stopped short, he reflected.
"The devil, I can't think of any one else. It can't be my father after what you told me—"
Renée quivered as if she had been burnt, and said huskily:
"No. You know very well that he no longer comes. I shouldn't accept, it would be ignoble."
"Then who is it?"
And he pressed her wrists still more tightly. The poor woman struggled for a few moments longer.
"Oh, Maxime, if you knew! I can't, however, tell you—"