"Why?"
A slight color tinged her cheeks; she was actually becoming annoyed with him!
"I will tell you when you are seated."
"What nonsense! One can hear as well standing."
Nevertheless, she obeyed. People generally did obey when Curtis spoke in that insistent manner.
Now he was quite near her, and his tone grew gentle again.
"The accident from which Monsieur de Courtois suffered was fatal," he said.
She looked at him, wide-eyed, alarmed, but assuredly not with the soul-sickened terror of a woman who loves when she hears that her lover is dead.
"Do you mean that he has been killed?" she whispered.
"Yes."