Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/106

102 looks at him with a great deal of surprise and not a little indignation, but obeys him, nevertheless, and seats herself close by his side.

"I trust monsieur will believe that I should never have consented to afford him this interview, had I not been assured—"

"Monsieur will spare you, mademoiselle, the trouble of telling him why you come here, since it is enough for him that you are here. I have nothing to do, mademoiselle, either with your motives or your scruples. I told you in my note that I required you to do me a service, for which I could afford to pay you handsomely; that, on the other hand, if you were unwilling to do me this service, I had it in my power to cause your dismissal from your situation. Your coming here is a tacit declaration of your willingness to serve me. So much and no more preface is needed. And now to business."

He seems to sweep this curt preface away, as he waves off a cloud of the blue smoke from his cigar with one motion of his small hand. The lady's-maid, thoroughly subdued by a manner which is quite new to her, awaits his pleasure to speak, and stares at him with surprised black eyes.

He is not in a hurry. He seems to be consulting the blue smoke prior to committing himself by any further remark. He takes his cigar from his mouth, and looks into the bright red spot at the lighted end, as if it were the lurid eye of his familiar demon. After consulting it for a few seconds he says, with the same indifference with which he would make some observation on the winter's day—

"So, your mistress, Mademoiselle Valerie de Cevennes, has been so imprudent as to contract a secret marriage with an opera-singer?"

He has determined on hazarding his guess. If he is right, it is the best and swiftest way of coming at the truth; if wrong, he is no worse off than before. One glance at the girl's face tells him he has struck home, and has hit upon the entire truth. He is striking in the dark: but he is a mathematician, and can calculate the effect of every blow.

"Yes, a secret marriage, of which you were the witness."

This is his second blow; and again the girl's face tells him he has struck home.

"Father Pérot has betrayed us, then, monsieur, for he alone could tell you this," said Finette.

The lounger understands in a moment that Father Pérot is the priest who performed the marriage. Another point in his game. He continues, still stopping now and then to take a puff at his cigar, and speaking with an air of complete indifference—

"You see, then, that this secret marriage, and the part you