“Yes, but not about herself.”
“Come, Blaise.”
“Not about the present, only of the past, her home over there.”
She made an impatient gesture.
“Does she never mention Philibert?”
“Never in any way that matters. How can you think—? Do you imagine then that she is vulgar?”
But Claire’s eyes, tranquil and dark with their usual mournful depths of mystery, looked at me deeply as if she had not heard.
“I am afraid,” she said, “of Bianca.”
I was startled. The idea that Claire was afraid, so afraid as to voice her fear to me in that low tone of secret confidence, seemed to make everything worse, much more miserable.
“Why?” I asked, searching her face that so often evaded me with its mockery and now was so grave and deliberate.