“Yes.”
He was cautious, for he was fighting on a field which women may rightly claim for their own. He really loved Etta. He was trying to gauge the meaning of a little change in her tone toward him—a change so subtle that few men could have detected it. But Claude de Chauxville —accomplished steersman through the shoals of human nature, especially through those very pronounced shoals who call themselves women of the world—Claude de Chauxville knew the value of the slightest change of manner, should that change manifest itself more than once.
The ring of indifference, or something dangerously near it, in Etta’s voice had first been noticeable the previous evening, and the attachi knew it. It had been in her voice whenever she spoke to him then. It was there now.
“Some things,” he continued, in a voice she had never heard before, for this man was innately artificial, “which a woman usually knows before they are told to her.”
“What sort of things, M. le Baron?”
He gave a little laugh. It was so strange a thing to him to be sincere that he felt awkward and abashed. He was surprised at his own sincerity.
“That I love you—hum. You have known it long?”
The face which he could not see was not quite the face of a good woman. Etta was smiling.
“No—o,” she almost whispered.
“I think you must have known it,” he corrected suavely. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”