"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."