Part 8 (2/2)
”Doubts all but justified. If you loved me, would you make this quarrel?
Would you not be glad to see me? Would you not have felt a something stir in your heart? For I, that am not a woman, feel a thrill in my inmost self at the mere sound of your voice. Often in a ballroom a longing has come upon me to spring to your side and put my arms about your neck.”
”Oh! if you have doubts of me so long as I am not ready to spring to your arms before all the world, I shall be doubted all my life long, I suppose. Why, Oth.e.l.lo was a mere child compared with you!”
”Ah!” he cried despairingly, ”you have no love for me----”
”Admit, at any rate, that at this moment you are not lovable.”
”Then I have still to find favour in your sight?”
”Oh, I should think so. Come,” added she, ”with a little imperious air, go out of the room, leave me. I am not like you; I wish always to find favour in your eyes.”
Never woman better understood the art of putting charm into insolence, and does not the charm double the effect? is it not enough to infuriate the coolest of men? There was a sort of untrammeled freedom about Mme de Langeais; a something in her eyes, her voice, her att.i.tude, which is never seen in a woman who loves when she stands face to face with him at the mere sight of whom her heart must needs begin to beat. The Marquis de Ronquerolles' counsels had cured Armand of sheepishness; and further, there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition which pa.s.sion will develop at moments in the least wise among mortals, while a great man at such a time possesses it to the full. He guessed the terrible truth revealed by the d.u.c.h.ess's nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the storm like a lake rising in flood.
”If you told me the truth yesterday, be mine, dear Antoinette,” he cried; ”you shall----”
”In the first place,” said she composedly, thrusting him back as he came nearer--”in the first place, you are not to compromise me. My woman might overhear you. Respect me, I beg of you. Your familiarity is all very well in my boudoir in an evening; here it is quite different.
Besides, what may your 'you shall' mean? 'You shall.' No one as yet has ever used that word to me. It is quite ridiculous, it seems to me, absolutely ridiculous.
”Will you surrender nothing to me on this point?”
”Oh! do you call a woman's right to dispose of herself a 'point?' A capital point indeed; you will permit me to be entirely my own mistress on that 'point.'”
”And how if, believing in your promises to me, I should absolutely require it?”
”Oh! then you would prove that I made the greatest possible mistake when I made you a promise of any kind; and I should beg you to leave me in peace.”
The General's face grew white; he was about to spring to her side, when Mme de Langeais rang the bell, the maid appeared, and, smiling with a mocking grace, the d.u.c.h.ess added, ”Be so good as to return when I am visible.”
Then Montriveau felt the hardness of a woman as cold and keen as a steel blade; she was crus.h.i.+ng in her scorn. In one moment she had snapped the bonds which held firm only for her lover. She had read Armand's intention in his face, and held that the moment had come for teaching the Imperial soldier his lesson. He was to be made to feel that though d.u.c.h.esses may lend themselves to love, they do not give themselves, and that the conquest of one of them would prove a harder matter than the conquest of Europe.
”Madame,” returned Armand, ”I have not time to wait. I am a spoilt child, as you told me yourself. When I seriously resolve to have that of which we have been speaking, I shall have it.”
”You will have it?” queried she, and there was a trace of surprise in her loftiness.
”I shall have it.”
”Oh! you would do me a great pleasure by 'resolving' to have it. For curiosity's sake, I should be delighted to know how you would set about it----”
”I am delighted to put a new interest into your life,” interrupted Montriveau, breaking into a laugh which dismayed the d.u.c.h.ess. ”Will you permit me to take you to the ball tonight?”
”A thousand thanks. M. de Marsay has been beforehand with you. I gave him my promise.”
Montriveau bowed gravely and went.
”So Ronquerolles was right,” thought he, ”and now for a game of chess.”
Thenceforward he hid his agitation by complete composure. No man is strong enough to bear such sudden alternations from the height of happiness to the depths of wretchedness. So he had caught a glimpse of happy life the better to feel the emptiness of his previous existence?
There was a terrible storm within him; but he had learned to endure, and bore the shock of tumultuous thoughts as a granite cliff stands out against the surge of an angry sea.
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