Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/95

Rh She gave a little sigh of contentment. "But why—?" he asked.

"I don't mind, somehow, telling you anything," she said, and indeed as it seemed with some truth. "He—he did me the honour to admire me—and now he has behaved like the pig he is."

"And so you have betrayed him—told me the things he told you when he loved you?"

She snapped her fingers, and the opals and rubies of her rings shone like fire.

"Love!" she said scornfully.

Then he began to be a little ashamed and sorry for his part in this adventure, and he said so.

"Ah—don't be sorry," she said softly. "I wanted to betray him. I was simply longing to do it—only I couldn't think of the right person to betray him to! But you are the right person, Monsieur. I am indeed fortunate!"

A little shiver ran through him. But he had gone too far to retreat.

"And the documents, Madame?"

"I will give you them to-morrow. There is a