Part 16 (2/2)
She nodded again. ”Of course. I have been here six days.”
”Indeed?--you have badly beaten me in our little race.”
She flashed on me a sudden glance. ”Why do you not ask me outright _why_ I am here?”
”Well, then, I do! I do ask you that. I ask you how you got access to that meeting to-night--for I doubt not you were there?”
She gazed at me deliberately again, parting her red lips, again smiling at me. ”What would you have given to have been there yourself?”
”All the treasures those vaults ever held.”
”So much? What will you give me, then, to tell you what I know?”
”More than all that treasure, Madam. A place--”
”Ah! a 'place in the heart of a people!' I prefer a locality more restricted.”
”In my own heart, then; yes, of course!”
She helped herself daintily to a portion of the white meat of the fowl.
”Yes,” she went on, as though speaking to herself, ”on the whole, I rather like him. Yet what a fool! Ah, such a droll idiot!”
”How so, Madam?” I expostulated. ”I thought I was doing very well.”
”Yet you can not guess how to persuade me?”
”No; how could that be?”
”Always one gains by offering some equivalent, value for value--especially with women, Monsieur.”
She went on as though to herself. ”Come, now, I fancy him! He is handsome, he is discreet, he has courage, he is not usual, he is not curious; but ah, _mon Dieu_, what a fool!”
”Admit me to be a fool, Madam, since it is true; but tell me in my folly what equivalent I can offer one who has everything in the world--wealth, taste, culture, education, wit, learning, beauty?”
”Go on! Excellent!”
”Who has everything as against my nothing! _What_ value, Madam?”
”Why, gentle idiot, to get an answer ask a question, always.”
”I have asked it.”
”But you can not guess that _I_ might ask one? So, then, one answer for another, we might do--what you Americans call some business--eh? Will you answer _my_ question?”
”Ask it, then.”
”_Were you married_--that other night?”
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