Melun had said nothing to him on that point, but he could clearly see where matters were trending. Money, he understood, would be of little value to Melun compared to a marriage with Kathleen.
He started, and started to such a degree that Madame surveyed him with open suspicion. “Sacrifice,” he said to himself. “Sacrifice.”
“Was that what she meant?”
And then he added to himself: “Oh, Heaven! If that's the sacrifice, then it shall never be.”
Outwardly, however, he only straightened his back and made a formal little bow to the astonished woman on the sofa.
“I believe you, Madame,” he said, “when you declare that you do not know.”
For a few moments he lapsed into silence, debating with himself whether he should drop the bombshell into Madame's camp now, or whether he should keep what, to this woman, would be the coping-stone of Melun's villainy—his intention to marry Kathleen—until such a moment when its dramatic force would turn the scales in his favour.
It required almost superhuman resolution on Westerham's part to hold this second secret to himself. But with an effort he held his lips in silence.
With the silence, too, he suddenly recognised that he had come into possession of a fact that would prove a mighty weapon with which to deal both with Mme. Estelle and with Melun.