There was not the slightest possibility of an interruption.
Mathilde commenced speaking.
"I believe you are pleased with your chamber, Agnes?"
"Charmed," I answered.
Without perceiving the double entendre hidden in my reply, she said:
"And you have always slept well, then?"
"Never better," I replied; "in that chamber," I mentally added.
In her ignorance of this silent reservation, she was pleased with my answer, and sat smiling quietly and studying, apparently, the glowing coals of fire in the chimneyplace.
I broke her reverie by saying, in a careless, off-hand way:
"Apropos de rien, you have not told me the story of that mysterious portrait yet."