The room in some respects resembled a boudoir rather than an office, but hung on its walls were charts marked with colored chalks. In all there were eight of these charts, and below each was a row of numerals. At one end of the room the framed portrait of a dark man with curly hair and a waxed mustache, a man obviously a foreigner, stood on the overmantle. In a corner near by were stacked twenty or more japanned tin boxes which might have been deed boxes, though none bore any name, while at the opposite end, close to the window, were several luxurious fauteuils, a comfortable settee, some occasional tables and Chippendale chairs. No sound of any sort found its way into the room.
The man rose in silence, and began slowly to pace the floor. Suddenly he stopped.
“This case interests me a good deal, Camille,” he said at last. “I feel sure she must have married the man.”
“Naturellement,” the woman answered with a shrug. “And now she wish—how you say—to be rids of him?”
“Rid of him, not ‘rids.’ But why?”
“Ma foi, you ask me one more. He has much money, hein?”
“It would seem so, judging by the sums he spends.”
“Alors naturellement. What else?”
“But proofs of the marriage have to be obtained, or she doesn’t get the money.”
“Oh, the proof can be obtained. I obtain him.”