There was such emotional intensity in her words that it sounded almost as though she hissed them at him and the Comte resisted the impulse to shake himself free of her restraining hand.
With an effort he managed to lift it quietly from his arm to his lips and to say as he kissed it perfunctorily,
“Forget all these problems for the moment, Josephine. I have already said, we will talk about them when I return.”
He bowed and, although she would have reached out her hands towards him again, he moved quickly from the room. She heard him cross the hall and open the door into the garden, then close it behind him.
She stood staring after him, before she said gloatingly,
“I have won! He is giving in because he can do nothing else!”
She turned with a flurry of her full skirts to stare at herse
