Mila blessed the darkness, which concealed her blushes, and she grew bolder as a timid woman gradually becomes intoxicated by the assured impunity of a masquerade.
"I am really afraid that it will be indiscreet in me to repeat it to you," she said, "and I should not dare to do it!"
"So you said unkind things about me, did you, naughty Mila?"
"No; for Princess Agatha had said so much good of you that it would have been impossible for me to think any evil of you. I cannot look at anything except through her eyes. But I let out something which Michel told me in confidence."
"Really? I don't know what you mean."
Mila noticed that Magnani's hand trembled. She ventured to strike a decisive blow.
"Well," she said, in an artless, almost indifferent tone, "I told the princess that you were really very kind, very pleasant and very learned; but that one had either to know you very well, or else guess at you in order to find it out!"
"Because ——?"
"Because you were in love, and that made you so melancholy that you lived almost entirely alone, buried in meditation."
Magnani trembled.