“Monsieur is cynic...”

“Madame means obvious.  Well:  if I patter platitudes it is to conceal a sense of gratification.”  Eve arched her eyebrows.  “I mean, you have shown me that I share at least one quality with you:  instinctive resentment of the voice of reason.”

She pronounced a plaintive “Mon Dieu!” and appealing to Heaven for compassion declared:  “He means again to wrestle spiritually with me about the proper disposition of my jewels.”

“No, madame:  pardon.  I am contemplating a long series of exhaustive arguments designed to prove it your duty to leave your jewels where they are, in all their noble insecurity.  This in the firm belief that to plead with you long enough to adopt this course will result in your going and doing otherwise out of sheer...”

“Perversity, monsieur?”

“Humanity, madame!”

Eve de Montalais laughed the charming, low-keyed laugh of a happily diverted woman.

“But spare yourself, monsieur.  I surrender at discretion:  I will do as you wish.”

“Truly?  Rather than listen to my discourse, you actually agree to remove your jewels to a safe place?”

“Even so, monsieur.  As soon as you are able to get about, and the Chateau de Montalais lacks a guest, I will leave Louise to take care of madame ma mere for a few days while I journey to Paris—­”

“Alone?”

“But naturally.”

“Taking your jewels with you?”

“Why else do I go?”

“But, madame, you must not—­”

“And why?”

“You, a woman! travel alone to Paris with a treasure in jewels?  Ah, no!  I should say not!”

“Monsieur is emphatic,” Eve suggested demurely.

“Monsieur means to be.  Rather than let you run such a risk I would steal the jewels myself, convey them to Paris, put them in safe keeping, and send you the receipt.”

“What a lot of trouble monsieur would save me, if he would only be so kind as to do as he threatens.”

“And how amusing if he were arrested en route,” Duchemin supplemented with a wry smile.

“I am quite confident of your ability to elude the police, monsieur.”

“Do I hear you compliment me?”

“If you take it so...”

“But suppose you were not confident of my good will?”

“Impossible.”

“Madame is too flattering; one is sure she is too wise to put so great a temptation in the way of any man.”

“Monsieur is the reverse of flattering; he implies that one does not know where one can repose trust.”

“I must warn madame there are those in this world who would call her faith misplaced.”

“Doubtless.  But what of that?  Am I to distrust you because others might who do not know you so well?”

“But—­madame—­you can hardly claim to know me well.