"Yes, he knows," replied the other. "At this moment his toilet is being made." He sank his voice so that the mute, abstracted girl should not overhear. "The hair above the neck, you know—they always shave that off. It might be better that mademoiselle should not see."
"Possibly," agreed Rufin, looking absently at his comely, insignificant face, which the lamps illuminated mercilessly.
The girl stood with her hands loosely joined before her, and her thin face vacant, staring, as though in a mood of deep thought, along the bare passage. Suddenly she addressed the officer.
"How long shall I be with him," she inquired, in tones of an almost arrogant composure, "before they cut his head off?"
The words, in their matter-of-fact directness, no less than the tone, seemed to startle the officer.
"Ah, Mademoiselle!" he protested, as though at an indelicacy or an accusation.
"How long?" repeated the girl.
"Kindly tell mademoiselle what she wishes to know," directed Rufin.
The officer hesitated. "It does not rest with me," he said uncomfortably. "You see, there is a regular course in these matters, a routine. I hope mademoiselle will have not less than ten minutes."
The girl looked at Rufin and made a face. It was as though she had been overcharged in a shop; she invited him, it seemed, to take note of a trivial imposture. Her manner and gesture had the repressed power of under-expression. He nodded to her in entire comprehension.