"Oh?" she said, without moving. "Has my father changed his secretary?"
"Yes, mademoiselle, and I should like to speak to you."
"Take a seat, monsieur; I have just finished."
She added a few words to her letter, signed it, sealed the envelope, pushed back her papers, took up the telephone, asked to be put on to her dressmaker, begged her to hurry on a travelling-cloak which she needed urgently and then, turning to Shears:
"I am at your service, monsieur. But cannot our conversation take place before my father?"
"No, mademoiselle, and I will even entreat you not to raise your voice. It would be better that M. Destange should not hear us."
"Better for whom?"
"For you, mademoiselle."
"I will not permit a conversation which my father cannot hear."
"And yet you must permit this one."