“Trouble?” quoth he. And, having opened his mouth to give exit to that single word, open he left it.
She laughed lazily, her lip curling, her face twisting oddly, and mechanically she began to draw on again the glove she had drawn off.
“By your face I see how well you understand me,” she sneered. “The trouble concerns Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.”
“From Paris—does it come from Court?” His voice was sunk.
She nodded. “You are a miracle of intuition today, Tressan.”
He thrust his tiny tuft of beard between his teeth—a trick he had when perplexed or thoughtful. “Ah!” he exclaimed at last, and it sounded like an indrawn breath of apprehension. “Tell me more.”
“What more is there to tell? You have the epitome of the story.”
“But what is the nature of the trouble? What form does it take, and by whom are you advised of it?”
“A friend in Paris sent me word, and his messenger did his work well, else had Monsieur de Garnache been here before him, and I had not so much as had the mercy of this forewarning.”
“Garnache?” quoth the Count. “Who is Garnache?”