She was at once entreating and commanding him. Rosas did not reply, but she felt in the trembling of his hand, as he pressed her own, in his brilliant glance, that she would see him again. And since he had returned to Paris alone, weary of being absent from her, perhaps, seeing that he had hastened back after having desired to free himself from her, did it not seem this time that he was wholly captivated?
All this was expressed by a pressure of the fingers, a glance, a sigh.
Rosas went rapidly away, like one distracted. Marianne, who motioned to Uncle Kayser to disappear, reappeared in the studio, entirely self-possessed.
Vaudrey had risen from the divan on which he had been sitting and he was standing, waiting.
"I believed that I understood that you had dismissed Monsieur de Rosas?"
"I might have told you that I did so, since it is true."
"You smiled at him, nevertheless, just now."
"Yes."
"A man who begged you to be his mistress!"
"And whom I rejected, yes!"