She stood dumfounded, wild-eyed, open-mouthed. The prince kissed her again, laughing.
She spluttered:
"You! It's you! O mother of God! . . . O mother of God! . . . Is it possible! . . . O mother of God! . . ."
"My dear old Victoire!"
"Don't call me that," she cried, shuddering. "Victoire is dead . . . your old servant no longer exists.[3] I belong entirely to Geneviève." And, lowering her voice, "O mother of God! . . . I saw your name in the papers: then it's true that you have taken to your wicked life again?"
[3] See Arsène Lupin, by Edgar Jepson and Maurice Leblanc, and The Hollow Needle, by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
"As you see."
"And yet you swore to me that it was finished, that you were going away for good, that you wanted to become an honest man."
"I tried. I have been trying for four years. . . . You can't say that I have got myself talked about during those four years!"
"Well?"