"Well, I do not like Lady Attwill," Pauline replied slowly.
"Oh, but Pauline!" she said.
"It is no use, madame; I cannot be two-faced with you. I am not able to conceal anything. I must speak straight out. I never could hide anything from you, and now it is no use trying. I really can't do it."
Her voice had risen towards that high and almost whining note of excitement and protest which is so peculiarly characteristic of the Bretons.
"Good gracious! what an outburst for you! What has Lady Attwill done? What on earth has she to do with the boxes?"
Pauline made a gesture with her hands. "But what an innocent!" she said, in half-humorous despair. "You never see things. You are just as confiding—I mean ignorant of people—as you were when you were twelve years old. Madame, Lady Attwill is no friend of yours."
"But that is absurd, Pauline," Peggy answered. "Lady Attwill is devoted to me. I am certain of it."
The maid wrinkled up her face, pushed out her lips, and nodded her head to emphasise her words. "Indeed! indeed, madame! Well, tell me this. Would she have kept dodging Lord Ellerdine out of the way at Charing Cross and afterwards at Boulogne if she was your friend?"
Peggy pouted. "I suppose she wanted to be alone with Lord Ellerdine," she said.
"Jamais! she can be alone with him at her flat—she need not wait to be alone with him at a public railway station."