"But Terence is like that." "Incredible!" the Count protested, and raised his dark eyes to heaven as if invoking its punishment upon so unnatural a husband.

"Do you tell me that you have never so much as seen the plans of these fortifications ?" "The plans, Count!" She almost laughed.
"Ah!" he said.

"I dare swear then that you do not even know of their existence." He was jocular now.
"I am sure that she does not," said Sylvia, who instinctively felt that the conversation was following an undesirable course.
"Then you are wrong," she was assured.

"I saw them once, a week ago, in Sir Terence's room." "Why, how would you know them if you saw them ?" quoth Sylvia, seeking to cover what might be an indiscretion.
"Because they bore the name: 'Lines of Torres Vedras.' I remember." "And this unsympathetic Sir Terence did not explain them to you ?" laughed Samoval.
"Indeed, he did not." "In fact, I could swear that he locked them away from you at once ?" the Count continued on a jocular note.
"Not at once.

But he certainly locked them away soon after, and whilst I was still there." "In your place, then," said Samoval, ever on the same note of banter, "I should have been tempted to steal the key." "Not so easily done," she assured him.