Her contemptuous look made me sigh. "Can you not see, mademoiselle, that to resolve deliberately and secretly on a man's death, and with premeditation to create a pretext for a challenge, is little better than assassination?"
"A fine excuse to avoid risking your life!"
Again I had to endure a look of profound scorn from her.
"Mademoiselle," I replied, patiently, "I would that you might see how ready I am to fight when an affront is given me or some one needs a defender."
"Oh!" she said, with an ironical smile. "Then to show yourself a lion against De Noyard, you require only that he shall affront you, or that some one shall need a defender against him! Suppose that I should ever be in such need?"
"You know that in your defence I would fight an army."
Her smile now lost its irony, and she assumed a look of conciliation, which I was both surprised and rejoiced to behold.
"Well, monsieur, it is pleasant to know that, if you will not take the offensive for me, you will, at least, act readily on the defensive if the occasion comes."
Much relieved at the turn the conversation had taken, I now undertook to continue it to my advantage. After some bantering, maintained with gaiety on her part, she said that she must return to the Louvre. Then, as she would not have me accompany her in the streets, I begged her to appoint another meeting. She evaded my petition at first, but, when I took her hand and refused to release it until she should grant my request, she said, after a little submissive shrug of her shoulders:
"Very well. Follow me, at a distance, from this church, and observe a house before which I shall stop for a moment as if to adjust my cloak. It is a house that has been taken by a friend of mine, one of the Queen-mother's ladies. I shall be there tomorrow afternoon."