"Your visit is a pleasure as illimitable in its delight as in its surprise, madame," he softly murmured.
"Yet a most unfitting moment for pedantic compliments," Mlle. Desormes warmly interjected; and I marvelled at the rage that still blazed within her eyes.
"I called on Monsieur Levivé at the Quai d'Orsay this morning," she continued, turning sharply upon her father; "why I did so concerns but you and me alone. To-day a paper has been stolen from Monsieur Roché's room, which adjoins Monsieur Levivé's, and I am charged with the theft."
Monsieur Desormes's eyebrows shot upward. "You?" he ejaculated.
"I," she answered, in cold passion. "I am accused of this theft. My name is linked with that of Monsieur Levivé, as the one who tempted him to dishonor. My name—can you realize the stigma, monsieur?"
"I can realize no connection of circumstances," he replied, contemptuously, and she crossed the room, and, laying her hand upon his desk, looked him full in the face.
"It seems that this paper incriminated you," she exclaimed; and I saw that then he started.
"It is a paper that pledged you to support, or, at any rate, not to oppose, the ministry, monsieur," I interrupted; "and it has been stolen."
"I am aware of that, madame. I decided that it was better for France not to keep that pledge."
"But not better for me," mademoiselle cried, "and I am even before France."