I had never heard Armand speak in this way before. I thought him--I still think him--a delicate, sensitive nature; his vulgarity seemed to me entirely put on--due in part to his being drunk, and still more to his desire to amuse the English girl. She was pretty enough, but must have been exceedingly silly to take any pleasure in such fooling; what kind of interest could Olivier find in all this?... I determined not to hide my disgust, as soon as we should be alone. “But you,” went on Armand, turning suddenly towards me, “you, who don’t care about money and who have enough to indulge in fine sentiments, will you consent to tell us why you didn’t marry Laura?--when it appears you were in love with her, and when, to common knowledge, she was pining away for you?” Olivier, who up to that moment had been pretending to be asleep, opened his eyes; they met mine and if I did not blush, it must certainly have been that not one of the others was in a fit state to observe me. “Armand, you’re unbearable,” said Sarah, as though to put me at my ease, for I found nothing to answer. She had hitherto been sitting on the bed, but at that point she lay down at full length beside Olivier, so that their two heads were touching. Upon which, Armand leapt up, seized a large screen which was standing folded against the wall, and with the antics of a clown spread it out so as to hide the couple; then, still clowning, he leant towards me and said without lowering his voice: “Perhaps you didn’t know that my sister was a whore?” It was too much. I got up and pushed the screen roughly aside. Olivier and Sarah immediately sat up. Her hair had come down. Olivier rose, went to the washhand stand and bathed his face. “Come here,” said Sarah, taking me by the arm, “I want to show you something.” She opened the door of the room and drew me out on to the landing. “I thought it might be interesting to a novelist. It’s a note-book I found accidentally--Papa’s private diary. I can’t think how he came to leave it lying about. Anybody might have read it. I took it to prevent Armand from seeing it. Don’t tell him about it. It’s not very long. You can read it in ten minutes and give it back to me before you go.” “But, Sarah,” said I, looking at her fixedly, “it’s most frightfully indiscreet.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, if that’s what you think, you’ll be disappointed. There’s only one place in which it gets interesting--and even that--Look here; I’ll show it you.” She had taken out of her bodice a very small memorandum book, about four years old. She turned over its pages for a moment, and then gave it to me, pointing to a passage as she did so. “Read it quickly.”