Madame Le Prun sat down upon the marble couch that stood there, carved with doves and Cupids, and embowered, in the transparent shadows of myrtle, like a throne of Venus. Blassemare fancied that he had never beheld so beautiful and piquante an image as Lucille at that moment presented: her cheeks glowing, her long lashes half dropped over the quenched fires of her proud dark eyes; her countenance full of a confusion that was at once beautiful and sinister; one hand laid upon her heart, as if to quell its beatings, and shut with an expression half defiant, half irresolute--and the pretty fingers of the other unconsciously playing with the tendrils of a pavenche. Blassemare enjoyed this pretty picture too much to disturb it by a word. Perhaps, too, there was comfort to his vanity in the spectacle of her humiliation; at all events he suffered some time to pass before he spoke to her. When he did, it was with a great deal of respect; for Blassemare, notwithstanding his coarseness, had a sufficiency of tact. "Madame perceives that I am not without discretion and zeal in her service." "Sir, you speak enigmas; you talk of secrets and provocation; and while you affect an air of deference, your meaning is full of insolence." It was plain her pride was mastering her fears, Blassemare thought it high time to lower his key. He therefore said, with a confident smile and an easy air-- "My meaning may be disagreeable, but that is chargeable not upon _me_, but on the _circumstances_ of our retrospect; and if I am enigmatical rather than explicit, I am so from respect, not insolence. My dear madame, on the honor of a gentleman, I saw Monsieur le Marquis de Secqville take his abrupt departure from your window--you understand. I not only saw him, but found and retained proofs of his identity, armed with which, I taxed him with the fact, and obtained his full confession. _Now_, madame, perhaps you will give me credit for something better than hypocrisy and insolence." Lucille looked thunderstruck for a moment, then rising, she darted on him a glance of rage and defiance, and overpowered by the tumult within her, she burst into a flood of tears, and covering her face with her hands, sobbed in silence, almost hysterically. Blassemare waited patiently while she wept on. Suddenly she looked full and fiercely on him, and cried-- "Perhaps you have told me falsehoods, and dared thus to trifle with me." "I swear, madame, on the honor of a nobleman of France, I have told you the simple truth. De Secqville did not venture to deny the fact; on the contrary, he confessed it frankly." "Yes--I see you tell me the truth; it was base of De Secqville!" "Well, to say truth, I did think he might have kept a lady's secret better." Blassemare was ready and unscrupulous; but all is fair in love. "I am innocent!" she cried, with abrupt vehemence, and fixing her fiery gaze upon him. "Of course, madame." "I say I am innocent, sir. Why do you say _of course_!"