"Madame—" began de Fouquier suavely.
"Not a syllable! It is not required. Business can be wound up in a few hours; and I do not doubt I shall find a successor who will serve me not less well than you. Gentlemanly conduct indeed!—handling and embracing my daughter—"
"Mother"—it was Elise who spoke—"are you quite demented?" For one who was not a principal she was inexplicably white and hard.
"Quite, I think," rejoined her sister, not at all as though the chief person concerned, but relieved to have a word to echo.
"Wretched girl. You dare deny—?" Here Mademoiselle Gros nudged and whispered. The Countess walked swiftly round the table to her daughter, and snatched at her left arm. "Deny now, will you? Ha! Ha! Look at your wrists; deny if you can."
We all stared. The white finger-pressure of another hand was unmistakable.
"Deny?" cried Suzanne scornfully, "of course I do. He holding my hand under the table! What an idiotic idea, just the sort of idea you would have. Dear me, how horrible if he had! That's what your filthy little spy thinks she saw through her filthy smoked glasses. The liar!"
"Those marks, then, Mademoiselle, if you please"—her mother sneered confidently—"Be so very kind as to explain."
"Those marks, then, Madame, if you please! I suppose you're not my mother, Madame, if you please, and know nothing of the little habit I've always had of sitting with my hands in my lap, with my left wrist clasped in my right hand, my own amorous right hand? I had finished my dessert, and—yes, I admit it—was sitting in that wicked position. And I will again. And, what is more, I won't have you and your accusations. I'm not a baby in long clothes, and I won't be spied on and shrieked at in that mad way. And I'll squeeze my wrist till it bleeds if I choose to."
Too confident, too explanatory. Lying was not in her line. But de Fouquier preserved an unruffled silence. I was not sure. The Countess too was wavering.