But no one joined her.
'She is certainly talking to papa,' was my next and more probable conjecture.

Having the profoundest distrust of Madame, I was naturally extremely jealous of the confidential interviews in which deceit and malice might make their representations plausibly and without answer.
'Yes, I'll run down and see--see _papa_; she shan't tell lies behind my back, horrid woman!' At the study-door I knocked, and forthwith entered.

My father was sitting near the window, his open book before him, Madame standing at the other side of the table, her cunning eyes bathed in tears, and her pocket-handkerchief pressed to her mouth.

Her eyes glittered stealthily on me for an instant: she was sobbing--_desolee_, in fact--that grim grenadier lady, and her attitude was exquisitely dejected and timid.

But she was, notwithstanding, reading closely and craftily my father's face.