‘One moment, sir!’ she said quickly, and in an altered tone. ‘You are, perhaps, a friend of M. de Bruhl—of my husband. In that case, if you desire to leave any message I will—I shall be glad to deliver it.’
She looked so charming that, despite the tumult of my feelings, I could not but regard her with admiration. ‘Alas! madame, I cannot plead that excuse,’ I answered. ‘I regret that I have not the honour of his acquaintance.’
She eyed me with some surprise. ‘Yet still, sir,’ she answered, smiling a little, and toying with a gold brooch which clasped her habit, ‘you must have had some ground, some reason, for supposing you would find a friend here?’
‘True, madame,’ I answered, ‘but I was mistaken.’
I saw her colour suddenly. With a smile and a faint twinkle of the eye she said, ‘It is not possible, sir, I suppose—you have not come here, I mean, out of any reason connected with a—a knot of velvet, for instance?’
I started, and involuntarily advanced a step towards her. ‘A knot of velvet!’ I exclaimed, with emotion. ‘Mon Dieu! Then I was not mistaken! I have come to the right house, and you—you know something of this! Madame,’ I continued impulsively, ‘that knot of velvet? Tell me what it means, I implore you!’
She seemed alarmed by my violence, retreating a step or two, and looking at me haughtily, yet with a kind of shame-facedness. ‘Believe me, it means nothing,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I beg you to understand that, sir. It was a foolish jest.’
‘A jest?’ I said. ‘It fell from this window.’
‘It was a jest, sir,’ she answered stubbornly. But I could see that, with all her pride, she was alarmed; her face was troubled, and there were tears in her eyes. And this rendered me under the circumstances only the more persistent.
‘I have the velvet here, madame,’ I said. ‘You must tell me more about it.’