"Tut, tut!" she cried. "Now don't deny it, because it is the only possible excuse for the way you have been talking to me. But a woman can easily excuse jealousy when she is not in love with the same man."
I was numbed with indignation at the manner in which this ingénue played with me, and she had had the audacity to place her arm around my waist.
"Confidence for confidence, ma chère," she murmured. "My father discovered that Monsieur Decassé and I loved each other, and had him transferred to Martinique, and," she looked up into my face, "even dry official reports of the progress of the island are interesting to me, because the man I love is there, and may even have written them."
Diplomacy vanished. I felt as helpless as a child in the hands of this innocent, whose ready tongue found such excuses, and with a spasm of rage I caught her by the wrist.
"Let us finesse no more, mademoiselle," I cried, sharply, "for the time is gone. I care for Martinique as much as you do, and you know what I have called for as well as I. Not this Yellow Book you brought away as an excuse, but the paper missing from Monsieur Roché's room. Will you give me that or not?"
"I do not understand you," she quietly replied.
"Give me that document which you, at your father's instigation, stole this morning."
She drew herself away, and her slight, girlish figure seemed to grow in dignity before me.
"How dare you?" she said. "How dare you?"
"I dare anything, when you have ruined the man I love. Give me that paper?"