Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/86

74 “Someone returning,” said I stepping up to the table opposite her.

“What then?” she asked, but wearily and not in the defiant manner of the morning.

“Mme. Delhasse perhaps, or perhaps the Duke of Saint-Maclou?”

Marie Delhasse made no answer. She sat with her elbows on the table, and her chin resting on the support of her clenched hands; her lids drooped over her eyes; and I could not see the expression of her glance, which was, nevertheless, upon me.

“Well, well,” I continued, “we needn’t talk about him. Have you been doing some shopping?” And I pointed to the red leathern box.

For full half a minute she sat, without speech or movement. Then she said in answer to my question, which she could not take as an idle one:

“Yes, I have been doing some bargaining.”

“Is that the result?”

Again she paused long before she answered.

“That,” said she, “is a trifle—thrown in.”

“To bind the bargain?” I suggested.

“Yes, Mr. Aycon—to bind the bargain.”

“Is it allowed to look?”

“I think everything must be allowed to you. You would be so surprised if it were not.”

I understood that she was aiming a satirical remark at me: I did not mind that; she had better flay me alive than sit and cry.

“Then I may open the box?”

“The key is in it.”