Remembering the sound of her voice in the court, she strove to keep it natural, even gentle, now. Susan's recent touch had helped her a little.
"All right," he answered.
"Come into my sitting-room for a minute," she said, when they were in the narrow gallery which ran round the drawing-room on the upper story of the house.
Next to her bedroom Charmian had a tiny room, a sort of nook, where she wrote her letters and did accounts.
"Well, what is it?" Claude asked again, when he had followed her into this room, which was lit only by a hanging antique lamp.
"How could you show the libretto to Madame Sennier?" said Charmian. "How could you be so mad as to do such a thing?"
As she finished speaking she sat down on the little divan in the embrasure of the small grated window.
"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I have never shown the libretto to Madame Sennier. What could put such an idea into your head?"
"But you must have shown it!"
"Charmian, I have this moment told you that I haven't."