"In detail, yes, but on the broad principle it is as plain as sunlight. Why should Monsieur Roché open the packet to-day?"
"Because of Monsieur Desormes's insolent threats of exposure and disgrace."
"Ah! now see, mon ami, how easy it becomes. A paper which incriminates Monsieur Desormes, which proclaims in his own writing his complicity in the policy adopted by the present ministry, was in Monsieur Roché's safe. This morning his daughter calls upon you on a preposterously transparent errand. She, one of the beauties of Paris, desires the loan of the recently issued report on Martinique; that necessitates your leaving her, and when she is gone, the paper is missing."
"The inference, on the broad principle, is that she stole it."
"Then that is the inference upon which we will base our work, mon ami."
"So you do not credit that in me she had a willing accomplice?"
"Should I be walking with you this afternoon if I did?" I said. "Only one thing I am sure about, and that is that Mlle. Desormes, in some inexplicable manner, stole that paper this morning, and must have it still. I am going to her at once, and next time we meet, mon ami, I will hand it back to you."
"You seem confident, Aidë."
"And that is victory half accomplished, mon cher; au revoir."
Ten minutes later I entered the court-yard of one of the mansions of the Boulevard Haussmann, and requested to see Mlle. Desormes. We were slight acquaintances, and already I counted that I had forced her to obey me, and to submit, for, although a very pretty and charming girl, she was too young and too inexperienced to be a match for a woman who was fighting for the good name of the man—But why confuse sentiment with diplomacy?