Still by an effort he controlled his feelings. "Why so cruel?" he murmured, in a tone meant for her alone, and with a look to match. "You were not so hard when I spoke with you in the gallery, two evenings ago, Madame."
"Was I not?" she asked. "Did I look like this? And this?" And, languishing, she looked at him very sweetly after two fashions.
"Something."
"Oh, then I meant nothing!" she retorted with sudden vivacity. And she made a face at him, laughing under his nose. "I do that when I mean nothing, Monsieur! Do you see? But you are Gascon, and given, I fear, to flatter yourself."
Then he saw clearly that she played with him: and resentment, chagrin, pique got the better of his courtesy. "I flatter myself?" he cried, his voice choked with rage. "It may be I do now, Madame, but did I flatter myself when you wrote me this note?" And he drew it out and flourished it in her face. "Did I imagine when I read this? Or is it not in your hand? It is a forgery, perhaps," he continued bitterly. "Or it means nothing? Nothing, this note bidding me be at Madame St. Lo's at an hour before midnight--it means nothing? At an hour before midnight, Madame!"
"On Saturday night? The night before last night?"
"On Saturday night, the night before last night! But Madame knows nothing of it? Nothing, I suppose?"
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled cheerfully on him. "Oh, yes, I wrote it," she said. "But what of that, M. de Tignonville?"
"What of that?"
"Yes, Monsieur, what of that? Did you think it was written out of love for you?"