Chapter 17

For me it was a continual ordeal. I was terrified of them both. Seeing them smiling in each other's faces with such apparent frankness, indulging in good-natured banter, playing the old, old game of elegant philandering, and knowing as I did that each determined nature was bent upon the destruction of the other, the strain was fearful. Touchon was ceaselessly seeking to charm my mistress with his basilisk eyes, while hers skated lightly away, but always conveying an intimation that they might yet succumb. She di…