"Marie Roche, Citizen."
"I mean your real name."
"But yes, Citizen"; and she wrote a word that had to be erased.
Dangeau pushed his chair back, and paced the room. "Marie Roche neither walks, speaks, nor writes as you do. Heavens! Am I blind or deaf?"
"I have not remarked it," said Mademoiselle demurely. Her head was bent to hide a smile, which, if a little tremulous, still betokened genuine amusement—amusement which it certainly would not do for the Citizen to perceive.
"Then do you believe that I am stupid, or"—with a change of tone—"not to be trusted?"
Mademoiselle de Rochambeau looked up at that.
"Monsieur," she said in measured tones, "why should I trust you?"
"Why should you trust Rosalie Leboeuf?" asked Dangeau, with a spice of anger in his voice. "Do you not consider me as trustworthy as she?"
"As trustworthy?" she said, a little bitterly. "That may very easily be; but, Monsieur, if I trusted her, it was of necessity, and what law does necessity know?"