Lady Blakeney turned from one to another, trying to conceal her
contempt beneath a mask of passionless indifference. Candeille was
standing close by, looking obviously distressed and not a little puzzled.
An instant's reflection was sufficient to convince Marguerite that the
whilom actress of the Varietes Theatre was obviously ignorant of the
events to which Chauvelin had been alluding: she was, therefore, of no
serious consequence, a mere tool, mayhap, in the ex-ambassador's hands.
At the present moment she looked like a silly child who does not
understand the conversation of the "grown-ups."

Marguerite had promised her help and protection, had invited her to her
house, and offered her a munificent gift in aid of a deserving cause. She
was too proud to go back now on that promise, to rescind the contract
because of an unexplainable fear. With regard to Chauvelin, the matter
stood differently: she had made him no direct offer of hospitality: she had
agreed to receive in her house the official chaperone of an unprotected
girl, but she was not called upon to show cordiality to her own and her
husband's most deadly enemy.

She was ready to dismiss him out of her life with a cursory word of
pardon and a half-expressed promise of oblivion: on that understanding
and that only she was ready to let her hand rest for the space of one
second in his.

She had looked upon her fallen enemy, seen his discomfiture and his
humiliation! Very well! Now let him pass out of her life, all the more
easily, since the last vision of him would be one of such utter abjection as
would even be unworthy of hate.

All these thoughts, feelings and struggles passed through her mind with