"He is a good creature after all," murmured Carla, turning, and looking after him with her glass in her eye.
"That he is," said a voice close to her.
"Mon Dieu! Signor Giraldi!"
"Always at your service."
"Always at an opportune moment. You have not yet been into the drawing-room? Of course not. Come! let us have a few minutes' chat. A tête-à-tête with you is a much envied privilege, which even Baroness Kniebreche herself would respect."
"And then this respectable tête-à-tête is not quite so dangerous as the preceding one," said Giraldi, sitting down by Carla on a little sofa, which stood at the end of the room beneath a candelabra on the wall. "Did you speak to him?"
"Just now!"
"And what did he answer?"
"He understands everything--except----"
"Not everything then?"