"It's got nothing to do with Charles," she blurted out. "It's Faulkner. No, listen-- I'll explain it all to you. The money came from the pearls-- I sold them."
"But you had them on just yesterday..."
"They're fake-- take a closer look. All you need to do is bite them, and..." This just wasn't the moment, though, to suggest to Antoine that he should sample her pearls with his teeth, and she felt it clearly-- nor was it the time to bring up Faulkner. She was turning out to be far more skilled at lying than telling the truth. Her cheek felt like it was burning now.
"I just couldn't take that job anymore..."
"After all of two weeks..."
"Yes, after all of two weeks. So I went to this jeweler's named Doris in Place Vendome, and I sold them my pearls and I got a cheap copy of the necklace made for me-- that's all"
"And so what did you do all day long all this time?"
"I went for walks, I stayed at home-- it was just like in the old days."
He was staring intently at her and it made her want to look away, but everybody knows that looking away in this kind of situation is a surefire sign of prevarication and so she forced herself to stare back at Antoine. His yellow-eyed gaze had turned somehow darker, and in the midst of all her turmoil it occurred to her that anger made him more handsome, which was a very unusual quality.
"Why should I believe you? You've been telling me nothing but a pack of lies for three weeks straight."
"Because I have nothing more to confess," she said wearily, at last daring to look away. She leaned her forehead against he windowpane absentmindedly following a cat as it sauntered down the sidewalk in a nonchalant fashion that belied the biting cold outside. She went on, in a calm voice: "I had warned you that I wasn't cut out for it...for anything of that sort. Either I'd have died of boredom or I'd have gone out of my mind. I was really unhappy, Antoine. That's the only possible thing to hold against me."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Oh, you were just so pleased to see me working, to see me caught up in 'real life'. And also, I was a pretty good actress!"
Francoise Sagan, La Chamade
