"Well, can't I put my fingers to my lips now? What, am I not to have the right to make a gesture, without accounting for it, without being insulted? Did any one ever see a woman treated in such an odious fashion? Well, tie me up then!"
You are acquainted with women's tactics, my dear Louis: they are always the same in such cases. I put a stop to it all after letting her deny the facts.
"Come, come," I said to her. "This is not the time for you to play the part of a persecuted victim. For the last half hour I have been watching you from behind those curtains. I saw everything—with my opera-glass," I added, showing her the glass in proof of my assertion.
Struck by this victorious demonstration she stood there in consternation. For a moment I enjoyed the effect I had produced and then continued:
"I saw the letter which he showed you, and the one which you have in your pocket—I can still see a bit of it peeping out."
On hearing this she became very red; and with incredible swiftness drew forth the incriminating missive, which she tore into a hundred pieces.
"All right," said I. "It would seem then that you had written something very compromising to that soldier, whom you have never met and whom you don't know."
"It was a letter for the modiste," she replied with assumed indignation.
"Yes, and you no doubt wanted him to deliver it," I retorted in an ironical strain.
This last bitter dart went home and set her beside herself. She assumed a superb attitude.