"Louis," continued Rose, dropping her voice to a whisper, after
nothing more was audible, "when may I trust our secret to my
husband?"
"Not yet!" rejoined Trudaine, earnestly. "Not a word, not a hint
of it, till I give you leave. Remember, Rose, you promised
silence from the first. Everything depends on your holding that
promise sacred till I release you from it."
"I will hold it sacred; I will indeed, at all hazards, under all
provocations," she answered.
"That is quite enough to reassure me--and now, love, let us
change the subject. Even these walls may have ears, and the
closed door yonder may be no protection." He looked toward it
uneasily while he spoke. "By-the-by, I have come round to your
way of thinking, Rose, about that new servant of mine--there is
something false in his face. I wish I had been as quick to detect
it as you were."
Rose glanced at him affrightedly. "Has he done anything
suspicious? Have you caught him watching you? Tell me the worst,
Louis."
"Hush! hush! my dear, not so loud. Don't alarm yourself; he has
done nothing suspicious."
"Turn him off--pray, pray turn him off, before it is too late!"
"And be denounced by him, in revenge, the first night he goes to
his Section. You forget that servants and masters are equal now.
I am not supposed to keep a servant at all. I have a citizen
living with me who lays me under domestic obligations, for which
I make a pecuniary acknowledgment.
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