"Where does this mirror come from? Whose is it? It is important that I should . . ."
She took it from him and looked at it:
"I don't know. . . . I never saw it before . . . a servant, perhaps. . . ."
"A servant, no doubt," he said, "but it is very odd . . . it is one of those coincidences. . . ."
At that moment, Geneviève entered by the other door, and without seeing Lupin, who was hidden by a screen, at once exclaimed:
"Why, there's your glass, Dolores! . . . So you have found it, after making me hunt for it all this time! . . . Where was it?" And the girl went away saying, "Oh, well, I'm very glad it's found! . . . How upset you were! . . . I will go and tell them at once to stop looking for it. . . ."
Lupin had not moved. He was confused, and tried in vain to understand. Why had Dolores not spoken the truth? Why had she not at once said whose the mirror was?
An idea flashed across his mind; and he asked, more or less at random:
"Do you know Louis de Malreich?"
"Yes," she said, watching him, as though striving to guess the thoughts that beset him.