"Are you sure?"
He hesitated and then declared:
"Absolutely sure."
"Oh," said she, greatly disappointed. "I had half guessed . . . that that man whom I saw twice . . . that you knew him . . . that . . ."
She did not finish her sentence, but waited for an answer to the question which she had put to him without daring to state it completely.
He was silent. Then, insisting no further, she bent over Mme. Ernemont:
"Good night, grandmother. My children must be in bed by this time, but they could none of them go to sleep before I had kissed them."
She held out her hand to the prince:
"Thank you once more. . . ."
"Are you going?" he asked quickly.