"Provocations! what do you mean, sir?"
"Madame must pardon me. I happen to be in possession of some secrets."
There was a short pause, during which Madame Le Prun's color came and went more than once.
"Will Madame Le Prun be so kind as to sit down here for a few minutes, and I will convince her that I have kept those secrets well, and that I am—I dare not say her friend—but the most devoted of her servants?"
Madame Le Prun sat down upon the marble couch that stood there, carved with doves and Cupids, and embowered, in the transparent shadows of myrtle, like a throne of Venus. Blassemare fancied that he had never beheld so beautiful and piquante an image as Lucille at that moment presented: her cheeks glowing, her long lashes half dropped over the quenched fires of her proud dark eyes; her countenance full of a confusion that was at once beautiful and sinister; one hand laid upon her heart, as if to quell its beatings, and shut with an expression half defiant, half irresolute—and the pretty fingers of the other unconsciously playing with the tendrils of a pavenche.
Blassemare enjoyed this pretty picture too much to disturb it by a word. Perhaps, too, there was comfort to his vanity in the spectacle of her humiliation; at all events he suffered some time to pass before he spoke to her. When he did, it was with a great deal of respect; for Blassemare, notwithstanding his coarseness, had a sufficiency of tact.
"Madame perceives that I am not without discretion and zeal in her service."
"Sir, you speak enigmas; you talk of secrets and provocation; and while you affect an air of deference, your meaning is full of insolence."
It was plain her pride was mastering her fears, Blassemare thought it high time to lower his key. He therefore said, with a confident smile and an easy air—
"My meaning may be disagreeable, but that is chargeable not upon me, but on the circumstances of our retrospect; and if I am enigmatical rather than explicit, I am so from respect, not insolence. My dear madame, on the honor of a gentleman, I saw Monsieur le Marquis de Secqville take his abrupt departure from your window—you understand. I not only saw him, but found and retained proofs of his identity, armed with which, I taxed him with the fact, and obtained his full confession. Now, madame, perhaps you will give me credit for something better than hypocrisy and insolence."