Would
Signora Dessalle consent to speak to that distinguished friend?
Jeanne trembled. Could she trust him? Would she be revealing things
which perhaps these two did not know, and were trying to find out from
her? Involuntarily she glanced at the Undersecretary, and her eyes spoke
so plainly that he could not avoid taking a decisive step.
"Signora," he said, with his habitual sarcastic smile, "I see that you
do not want rue here. My presence is not necessary, and I will go, in
obedience to your wish; it is a just wish, and one easily explained."
Jeanne blushed, and he noticed it, and was pleased at having succeeded
in wounding her by the covert allusion contained in his last words, and,
above all, in his malicious smile.
"Nevertheless," he added, still smiling in the same way, "I cannot leave
without assuring you, on my honour, that my wife is a most loyal friend
to you; that she has never uttered an indiscreet word to me concerning
you, as I myself have never been guilty of indiscretion when discussing
the same subject with my wife.
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