It was very correctly done, Claude de Chauxville had regained control over himself. He was able to think about the riches which were evidently hers. But through the thought he loved the woman.
The lady lowered the feather screen which she was holding between her face and the fire. Regardless of the imminent danger in which she was placing her complexion, she studied the glowing cinders for some moments, weighing something or some persons in her mind.
“No, my friend,” she answered in French, at length.
The baron’s face was drawn and white. Beneath his trim black mustache there was a momentary gleam of sharp white teeth as he bit his lip.
He came nearer to her, leaning one hand on the back of her chair, looking down. He could only see the beautifully dressed hair, the clean-cut profile. She continued to look into the fire, conscious of the hand close to her shoulder.
“No, my friend,” she repeated. “We know each other too well for that. It would never do.”
“But when I tell you that I love you,” he said quietly, with his voice well in control.
“I did not know that the word was in your vocabulary—you, a diplomat.”
“And a man—you put the word there—Etta.”
The hand-screen was raised for a moment in objection—presumably to the Christian name of which he had made use.