"Come in, then," and now she opened the salon door wide enough to give admission to him and closed it again, and, softly as before, pushed the bolt back into its place.
When La Truaumont had kissed the hand she held out to him and she had motioned him to a chair in front of the now almost extinct fire, she said: "What of him? How did you leave him? And is he still in Paris?"
Imitating the woman's own low tones, which it was natural enough she should assume when receiving a man in her salon in an inn at nearly midnight, La Truaumont said, "He is well. I left him so. And he is still in Paris. Lou--Emérance," he continued, with a laugh, though a low one, "are you happy now?"
"Yes. Almost happy."
"You should be. But you may yet pay a dear price for your happiness."
"Bah!"
"You do not fear what failure, treachery, betrayal, may bring to him and you and me and all of us? You do not fear what may be ahead of us?"
"I fear nothing on this earth nor in the world beyond, so that he trusts me. I longed to serve him since first I saw him ride at the head of his guards before the King."
"And now you are happy?" La Truaumont asked again.
"Now I am almost happy."