'A smouldering fire--' You
know, madame, our French proverb. He is not the man to take a rational
and broad-minded view of your little transaction with M. Vassili; more
especially, perhaps, as it banished his friend Stepan Lanovitch--the
owner of this house, by the way. His reception of the news I have to
tell him would be unpleasant--for you."
"What do you want?" interrupted Etta. "Money?"
"I am not a needy adventurer."
"And I am not such a fool, M. de Chauxville, as to allow myself to be
dragged into a vulgar intrigue, borrowed from a French novel, to satisfy
your vanity."
De Chauxville's dull eyes suddenly flashed.
"I will trouble you to believe, madame," he said, in a low, concentrated
voice, "that such a thought never entered my head. A De Chauxville is
not a commercial traveller, if you please. No; it may surprise you, but
my feeling for you has more good in it than you would seem capable of
inspiring. God only knows how it is that a bad woman can inspire a good
love."
Etta looked at him in amazement. She did not always understand De
Chauxville. No matter for surprise, perhaps; for he did not always
understand himself.
"Then what do you want?" she asked.
"In the meantime, implicit obedience."
"What are you going to use me for?"
"I have ends," replied Claude de Chauxville, who had regained his usual
half-mocking composure, "that you will serve.
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