As if the question afforded him infinite amusement, the vicomte laughed.

“Would I be here?” he said.  “Would I have ventured into this desert?  Rather would I not have spoken yonder in France?  I shall tell you how I obtained it . . . after we are married.”

Madame raised a hand and nervously tapped a knuckle against her teeth.

“Which is it to be, Madame?” caressing the paper.

“Monsieur, you are not without foresight and reason.  Have you contemplated what I should become in time, forced into a marriage with a man whom I should not love, with whom I should always associate the sword, and the mask, and the grey cloak?”

“I have speculated upon that side of it,” easily, “and am willing to take the risk.  In time you would forget all about the sword and the cloak, since they can in no wise be associated with me.  Eventually you would grow to love me.”

“Either you understand nothing about women, or you are guilty of gross fatuity.”

“I understand woman tolerably well, and I have rubbed against too many edges to be fatuous.”

“Indeed, I believe you have much to learn.”

“If I showed this paper to the governor of Quebec . . .”

“Which you will not do, there being no magic liquid this side of France.”

“It would be simple to cut out the name.”

“You would still have to explain to Monsieur de Lauson how you came into possession of it.”

“Madame, the more I listen to you, the more determined I am that you shall become my wife.  I admire the versatility of your mind, the coolness of your logic.  Not one woman in a thousand could talk to so much effect, when imprisonment or death . . .”

“Or marriage!”

“. . . faced her as surely as it faces you.”

“Permit me to see the paper, Monsieur.”

Some men would have surrendered to the seductiveness of her voice; not so the vicomte.

“Scarcely, Madame,” smiling.

“How am I to know that it is genuine?  Allow me to glance at it?”

“And witness you tear it up, or . . . burn it like a love-letter?” shrewdly.

Madame stiffened in her chair.

“Have you ever burned a love-letter, Madame?” asked the vicomte.

Madame turned pale from rage and shame.  The rage nearly overcame the fear and terror which she was so admirably concealing.

“Have you?” pitilessly.

“You . . . ?”

“Yes,” intuitively.  He touched the particles of burnt paper and laughed.

“You were in this room?”

“I was.  It was not intentional eavesdropping; my word of honor, as to that.  I came in here, having an unimportant engagement with a friend.  He was late.  While I waited, in walked Monsieur le Chevalier, then yourself.”

“Monsieur, you might have made known your presence.”

“It is true that I might; but I should have missed a very fine comedy.  Madame, I compliment you.  How well you have kept undiscovered, even undreamt of, this charming intrigue!”