"Your presumption is correct, Madame. I would not for the world intrude upon your privacy. But let me not, on the other hand, detain you here. I can wait your gracious pleasure, until you deign to turn my overseer out of your private apartments, and send him hither to speak with me." For a moment Madame looked round her in hopeless bewilderment. The situation had developed in a manner wherewith she was unable to cope. For the first time in her life she would have given much to have someone else's support or counsel in this crisis which she began seriously to fear would culminate in disaster. But there was no one near to help her out of her difficulty. Fernande had not left her room, M. de Courson and Laurent were far away, and even old Matthieu had very discreetly retired as soon as he saw Madame la Marquise in close conversation with "M. le Marechal." There was silence in the vast pillared hall for a second or two while these two equally firm wills stood up in bitter conflict one against the other. There was never a doubt for a moment as to who would be forced to yield. Madame even now felt like some bird whose strong wings were in the hands of a ruthless tamer, who already was busy in clipping them. She tried to brave that tamer or else to defy him; but he, armed with a determination no less firm than her own and with a tenacity that nothing could conquer, was waging a war of attrition, and was calmly biding his time while Madame, torn between genuine fear and outraged dignity, was seeking in vain for a means of extricating herself from this harrowing position. Ronnay de Maurel, in fact, was leaning against one of the marble pillars of the hall with a smile round his firm lips which, had not the situation been quite so tense, might almost have been interpreted as one of keen, if somewhat grim, amusement, whilst Madame stood before him, hot and defiant, her small foot tapping the ground in order to ease the exacerbation of her nerves. "Very well," she said abruptly, and she deliberately turned on her heel and made for the door of the library, where Leroux no doubt was still standing, quaking in his shoes like the miserable craven that he was. "Very well! An you are determined to put this insult on your mother in the presence of such an oaf, I can do naught to prevent you. Go and speak with your overseer an you have a mind." "And will you deign to be present at the interview, Madame?" he asked. "If you wish it," she replied curtly. Of a truth, she would not have trusted Leroux to speak alone with de Maurel; the man was three parts a coward, and it was more than doubtful whether under stress of fear he would remain true to his bargain with de Puisaye; whilst the part of him that was base and criminal might lead him to an attack of violence, which, whatever its results might be, was certainly not within the scope of Madame's reckonings.