But Clorinde winked and drew from her pocket a little tobacco pouch, of red silk, embroidered with gold, and scarcely larger than a purse. She rolled a cigarette with the tips of her tapering fingers, and then, as they did not wish to ring, they began to search the room for matches. At last they found three on a sideboard, and Clorinde carefully carried them off. With her cigarette between her lips, she sat back in her chair and began to sip her coffee, while gazing smilingly at Rougon. 'Well, I am entirely at your service now,' he remarked, with an answering smile. 'You want to talk to me; so let us talk.' Clorinde made a gesture as though to express that what she had to say was of no consequence. 'Yes,' she rejoined; 'I have had a letter from my husband. He is feeling very bored at Turin. Of course, he is much pleased at having got this mission, thanks to you, but he doesn't want to be forgotten while he is away. However, we can talk of all that presently. There's no hurry about it.' Then she again began to smoke and look at Rougon with her irritating smile. The minister had gradually accustomed himself to seeing her, without worrying about those questions which had formerly so disturbed him. Clorinde had now become a feature of his daily life, and he accepted her as though he understood her, as though her eccentricities no longer caused him the faintest surprise. As a matter of fact, however, he knew nothing certain about her even yet: she was as great a mystery to him as she had been in the first days of their acquaintance. She constantly varied, sometimes acting childishly, sometimes showing herself very deep and knowing; for although, as a rule, she seemed very foolish, she occasionally manifested singular shrewdness. And now, too, she was very gentle, and now extremely spiteful. When she surprised Rougon by some word or gesture which he could not understand, he shrugged his shoulders with an expression of superiority, opining that all women behaved in that fantastic way. He fancied that he thus manifested a supreme contempt for the sex, but his manner merely sharpened Clorinde's smile, a smile which had an expression of crafty cruelty about it, revealing as it did her eager teeth between her ruby lips. 'Why are you looking at me in that way?' Rougon asked her at length, feeling disturbed by the steady gaze of her large eyes. 'Is there anything about me which displeases you?' Some hidden thought had just brought a gleam from the depths of Clorinde's eyes, and her lips had assumed a hard expression. But she quickly put on a charming smile again, and began to puff out little whiffs of smoke while saying: 'Oh, dear no, you're very nice. I was thinking about something, my dear fellow. Do you know that you have been very lucky?' 'How's that?' 'Why, yes. Here you are on the pinnacle which you were so anxious to reach. Everybody has helped to lift you to it, and events themselves have worked for you.'