“Not if Madame desires me to stay.”
“You may please yourself, of course. But if you went I should miss you.”
Without embarrassment he bowed, walked a few paces away, and stationed himself out of reach of our talk.
I do not think my attempt to look unconcerned was entirely successful, and I betrayed myself, I am sure, by asking:
“Have you been here very long?”
(What I meant, of course, was: “Do you know Lovelace well?”).
“Just five days,” she said, as though I had asked the most ordinary question in the world. Then, after a pause, she asked: “I surprise you?”
“No, why?”
She smiled.
“You lie so well,” she said, “that I feel I can trust you.”