De Chauxville leaned gracefully against the window. He still held his rifle.
“Reflect a little,” he said, with his cold smile. “It would appear that you do not quite realize the situation. Women rarely realize situations in time. Our friend—your husband—has many of the English idiosyncrasies. He has all the narrow-minded notions of honor which obtain in that country. Added to this, I suspect him of possessing a truly Slavonic fire which he keeps under. ‘A smouldering fire—’ You know, madame, our French proverb. He is not the man to take a rational and broad-minded view of your little transaction with M. Vassili; more especially, perhaps, as it banished his friend Stipan Lanovitch—the owner of this house, by the way. His reception of the news I have to tell him would be unpleasant—for you.”
“What do you want?” interrupted Etta. “Money?”
“I am not a needy adventurer.”
“And I am not such a fool, M. de Chauxville, as to allow myself to be dragged into a vulgar intrigue, borrowed from a French novel, to satisfy your vanity.”
De Chauxville’s dull eyes suddenly flashed.
“I will trouble you to believe, madame,” he said, in a low, concentrated voice, “that such a thought never entered my head. A De Chauxville is not a commercial traveller, if you please. No; it may surprise you, but my feeling for you has more good in it than you would seem capable of inspiring. God only knows how it is that a bad woman can inspire a good love.”
Etta looked at him in amazement. She did not always understand De Chauxville. No matter for surprise, perhaps; for he did not always understand himself.
“Then what do you want?” she asked.
“In the meantime, implicit obedience.”