"That Sacqueville-Danglars tastelessly-overdone-with-far-too-much-gilt-hame has need of haste," said De Brie. "Apart from that, what do you expect to become of you?"
"I was going to ask you," said the baroness with palpitating heart.
"Then you ask me for counsel?"
"Yes, I ask you for counsel."
"Diplomats seldom give unguarded advice, for all routes may turn out ill and cause a diplomatic incident," said De Brie coldly. "But if, nonetheless, you ask counsel of me, I would say that an absence from Annuminas will be absolutely necessary, after the double éclat of the broken marriage of Mlle. Éowénie and the collapse of Sacqueville-Danglars. All that matters is that one believe you poor and abandoned, and hanging from a gibbet for the amusement of the gutter press, and perhaps trampled by your expensive moumaque fighting a crowd to buy a ticket to one of Pierre-Jacques's operas. One will never forgive the wife of a bankrupt her opulence and state of house; and since you are separated from your husband, your boudoir has lost its charm for respectable adulterers."
"Abandoned!" she repeated, pale and appalled. "Yes, abandoned... yes, you are right, monsieur, none will doubt of my abandonment."
