"I don't understand," she said in a fretfully weary tone, "how you come to
be mixed up in it at all."

"It's a long story." Then I went on abruptly: "You thought it was someone
else that had entered."

"Well, if I did?"

"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?"