de Coralth's
eyes, she went no further.
"A truce to these disagreeable truths," said he, coldly. "If we
expressed our opinions of each other without reserve, in this
world, we should soon come to hard words. Do you think I acted
for my own pleasure? Suppose some one had seen me when I slipped
the cards into the pack. If that had happened, I should have been
ruined."
"And you think that no one suspects you?"
"No one. I lost more than a hundred louis myself. If Pascal
belonged to our set, people might investigate the matter, perhaps;
but to-morrow it will be forgotten."
"And will he have no suspicions?"
"He will have no proofs to offer, in any case."
Madame d'Argeles seemed to resign herself to the inevitable. "I
hope you will, at least, tell me on whose behalf you acted," she
remarked.
"Impossible," replied M. de Coralth. And, consulting his watch,
he added, "But I am forgetting myself; I am forgetting that that
idiot of a Rochecote is waiting for a sword-thrust. So go to
sleep, my dear lady, and--till we meet again."
She accompanied him so far as the landing. "It is quite certain
that he is hastening to the house of M. Ferailleur's enemy," she
thought. And, calling her confidential servant, "Quick, Job," she
said; "follow M. de Coralth. I want to know where he is going.
And, above all, take care that he doesn't see you."
V.
If through the length and breadth of Paris there is a really
quiet, peaceful street, a refuge for the thoughtfully inclined, it
is surely the broad Rue d'Ulm, which starts from the Place du
Pantheon, and finishes abruptly at the Rue des Feuillantines.
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