"It was a _bêtise_, a slip of the pen; I admit you are right," and indifferently I opened Coralie's effusion, smiling over it. I put up my hand as if to shade my eye, and looked at Alathea through the fingers. She was watching me with an expression of slightly anxious interest. I could almost have believed that she was _jealous_! My triumph increased. I removed my hand and appeared only to be intent upon Coralie's letter. "Perhaps we each have friends which might bore the other, so when you want to have parties tell me, and I will arrange to go out, and when I want to, I will tell you. In that way we can never have any jars." "Thank you, but I have no friends except the Duchesse, or very humble people who don't want to come to parties." "But you will be making plenty of new friends now. I have some which you will meet out in the world which I daresay you won't care about, and some who come and dine with me sometimes, who probably you would dislike." "Yes,--I know." "How do you know?" I asked innocently, affecting surprise. "I used to hear them when I was typing." I smiled. I did not defend them. "If you should chance to meet, would you be civil to them?" "Of course, 'Coralie,' 'Odette,' and 'Alice,' the Duchesse has often described them all! It was 'Coralie' who came to talk to you at Versailles in the park, was it not?" Her voice was contemptuously amused and indifferent, but her little nostrils quivered. Underneath she was disturbed I knew. "Yes, Coralie is charming, she knows more about how to put clothes on becomingly than any other woman." "Do they dine often? Because I could perhaps arrange to go and have my music lesson with Monsieur Trani on those evenings, twice a week or oftener?" "You would refuse to meet them?" I pretended to be annoyed. "Certainly not, one does not do ridiculous things like that. I will meet whoever you wish. I only thought it might spoil your pleasure if I were there, unless of course you have told them that I am only a permanent secretary masquerading under the name of your wife--so that they need not restrain themselves." Her face had become inscrutable. She was quite calm now. I grew uncertain again for a moment. Had I carried the bluff far enough? "They have all quite charming manners, but as you infer they might not be so amused to come to the dinner of a married man. I think the last part of your speech was rather a reflection upon my sense of being a gentleman though. I of course have not informed anyone of our quaint relations.--But remember you told me once you did not think I was a gentleman, so I must not be offended now." She did not speak, she was looking down and her eyelashes made a shadow on her cheeks. Her mouth was sad.