She remained motionless, pale and as if frozen.
"Then you have kept?—" she said.
"A postscriptum, if you like, yes."
"Are you lying now, or did you lie in giving me the packet that has been burned?"
"I did not tell you that the packet was complete, and what I now tell you is the simple truth! I regret it, but you have compelled me to keep my batteries, in too quickly unmasking your own."
Marianne pulled off her gloves in anger.
"If you do not give me everything here that belongs to me, you are a coward; you hear, a coward, Monsieur de Lissac!"
"Oh! your insults are of as little importance as your kisses! but they are less agreeable!"
She clearly saw that she had thrown off the mask too soon, and that Lissac would not now allow himself to be snared by her caresses or disarmed by her threats. The game was lost.
Lost, or merely compromised?