“Exciting, Monsieur?”

He laughed brutally.

“Certainly; I said exciting.”

She answered him very coldly:

“I have never thought about the question.”

“Naturally—you leave others to think. Your friends, for instance. Pray count me among the number.”

The very suggestion was an insult—a subtle insult; but she realised that in some way this man shared a secret momentous to her happiness, and she restrained her just resentment.

“You were my husband’s friend, Monsieur Gatelet; I am sure you are mine.”

“Do not doubt it. It is pleasant to see the faces one knows when so many are missing. I think often of our old acquaintances—of Tripard, and Giraud, and Chandellier, and the Englishman. Ah, you remember the Englishman, Brandon North, Madame?”