Well, admitting that you are telling the truth, the chimera does not exist now, for here I am." "You are mistaken.

I knew perfectly that it was Mme.

Chantelouve hiding behind the pseudonym of Mme.

Maubel." And he half-explained to her, without, of course, letting her know of his doubts, how he had lifted her mask.
"Ah!" She reflected, blinking her troubled eyes.

"At any rate," she said, again facing him squarely, "you could not have recognized me in the first letters, to which you responded with cries of passion.