a mocking
silence.

"Then adieu!" she said abruptly. "I hope that we shall never see each
other again!"

"How can you help it?" said Lissac, smiling. "In Paris!"

He sat down on a chair, while Marianne stood, putting on her gloves.

"On my word, my dear Marianne, for a clever woman you are outrageously
sanguine."

"I?"

"And credulous! You credit me with the simplicity of the Age of Gold,
then?--Is it possible?--Do you think a corrupted Parisian like myself
would allow himself to be trifled with like a schoolboy by a woman as
extremely seductive as I confess you are? But, my dear friend, the first
rule in such matters is only to completely disarm one's self when it is
duly proved that peace has been definitely signed and that a return to
offensive tactics is not to be feared. You have shown your little pink
claws too nimbly, Marianne. Too quickly and too soon. In one of those
drawers, there are still one or two letters left, I was about to say,
that belong to the series of letters that are slumbering: exquisite,
perfumed, eloquent, written in that pretty, fine and firm writing that
you have just thrown into the fire, and those letters I would only have
given you on your continuing to act fairly. They were my reserve. It is
an elementary rule never to use all one's powder at a single shot, and
one never burns _en bloc_ such delicate autographs. They are too
valuable! Tell me, will you disdain to recognize me when you meet me,
Miss Marianne?"

She remained motionless, pale and as if frozen.

"Then you have kept?--" she said.

"A postscriptum, if you like, yes."

"Are you lying now, or did you lie in giving me the packet that has been
burned?"

"I did not tell you that the packet was complete, and what I now tell
you is the simple truth! I regret it, but you have compelled me to keep
my batteries, in too quickly unmasking your own."

Marianne pulled off her gloves in anger.

"If you do not give me everything here that belongs to me, you are a
coward; you hear, a coward, Monsieur de Lissac!"

"Oh! your insults are of as little importance as your kisses! but they
are less agreeable!"

She clearly saw that she had thrown off the mask too soon, and that
Lissac would not now allow himself to be snared by her caresses or
disarmed by her threats. The game was lost.

Lost, or merely compromised?

She looked about her with an expression of powerless rage, like a very
graceful wild beast enclosed in a cage. H