"Oh, I can find plenty of men, when the fancy takes me to be made miserable," she said, laughing.
She soon recovered from the effects of her emotion, for all women, from the great lady to the maid of the inn, possess a composure that is peculiar to them.
"You are too good-looking and well favored to be short of lovers. But tell me, Rosalie, why did you take service in an inn after leaving Madame de Merret? Did she leave you nothing to live on?"
"Oh, yes! But, sir, my place is the best in all Vendôme."
The reply was one of those that judges and lawyers would call evasive. Rosalie appeared to me to be situated in this romantic history like the square in the midst of a chessboard. She was at the heart of the truth and chief interest; she seemed to me to be bound in the very knot of it. The conquest of Rosalie was no longer to be an ordinary siege—in this girl was centred the last chapter of a novel; therefore from this moment Rosalie became the object of my preference.
One morning I said to Rosalie: "Tell me all you know about Madame de Merret."
"Oh!" she replied in terror, "do not ask that of me, Monsieur Horace."
Her pretty face fell—her clear, bright color faded—and her eyes lost their innocent brightness.
"Well, then," she said, at last, "if you must have it so, I will tell you about it; but promise to keep my secret!"
"Done! my dear girl, I must keep your secret with the honor of a thief, which is the most loyal in the world."