“I think you had better go,” said Etta quietly. She went toward the fire-place and rang the bell.
M. de Chauxville took up his hat and gloves.
“Of course,” he said coldly, his voice shaking with suppressed rage, “there is some reason for this. There is, I presume, some one else—some one has been interfering. No one interferes with me with impunity. I shall make it my business to find out who is this—”
He did not finish: for the door was thrown open by the butler, who announced:
“Mr. Alexis.”
Paul came into the room with a bow toward De Chauxville, who was going out, and whom he knew slightly.
“I came back,” he said, “to ask what evening next week you are free. I have a box for the ‘Huguenots.’”
Paul did not stay. The thing was arranged in a few moments, and as he left the drawing-room he heard the wheels of De Chauxville’s carriage.
Etta stood for a moment when the door had closed behind the two men, looking at the portihre which had hidden them from sight, as if following them in thought. Then she gave a little laugh—a queer laugh that might have had no heart in it, or too much for the ordinary purposes of life. She shrugged her shoulders and took up a magazine, with which she returned to the chair placed for her before the fire by Claude de Chauxville.
In a few minutes Maggie came into the room. She was carrying a bundle of flannel.