Barebone leant forward to put together the logs, which burnt with a white incandescence that told of a frosty night. The Marquis had business in the town, and would soon return from the notary's, in time to dress for dinner. "Well," said Loo, over his shoulder, "it is as well to understand each other, is it not?" "Yes," she answered, significantly. She ignored the implied sarcasm altogether. There was so much meaning in her reply that Loo turned to look at her. She was smiling as she worked. "Yes," she went on; "you have told me your secret--a secret. But I have the other, too; the secret you have not told me, _mon ami_. I have had it always." "Ah?" "The secret that you do not love me," said Juliette, in her little wise, even voice; "that you have never loved me. Ah! You think we do not know. You think that I am too young. But we are never too young to know that, to know all about it. I think we know it in our cradles." She spoke with a strange philosophy, far beyond her years. It might have been Madame de Chantonnay who spoke, with all that lady's vast experience of life and without any of her folly. "You think I am pretty. Perhaps I am. Just pretty enough to enable you to pretend, and you have pretended very well at times. You are good at pretending, one must conclude. Oh! I bear no ill-will ..." She broke off and looked at him, with a gay laugh, in which there was certainly no note of ill-will to be detected. "But it is as well," she went on, "as you say, that we should understand each other. Thank you for telling me your secret--the one you have told me. I am flattered at that mark of your confidence. A woman is always glad to be told a secret, and immediately begins to anticipate the pleasure she will take in telling it to others, in confidence." She looked up for a moment from her work; for Loo had given a short laugh. She looked, to satisfy herself that it was not the ungenerous laugh that nine men out of ten would have cast at her; and it was not. For Loo was looking at her with frank amusement. "Oh, yes," she said; "I know that, too. It is one of the items not included in a convent education. It is unnecessary to teach us such things as that. We know them before we go in. Your secret is safe enough with me, however--the one you have told me. That is the least I can promise in return for your confidence. As to the other secret, _bon Dieu_! we will pretend I do not know it, if you like. At all events, you can vow that you never told me, if--if ever you are called upon to do so." She paused for a moment to finish off a thread. Then, when she reached out her hand for the reel, she glanced at him with a smile, not unkind.