"A friend is never so welcome as when he comes of his own accord!" said she, presenting her hand to the Intendant, who took it with empressement. She made room for him on the seat beside her, dashing her skirts aside somewhat ostentatiously.
Bigot looked at her admiringly. He thought he had never seen, in painting, statuary, or living form, a more beautiful and fascinating woman.
Angelique accepted his admiration as her due, feeling no thanks, but looking many.
"The Chevalier Bigot does not lose his politeness, however long he absents himself!" said she, with a glance like a Parthian arrow well aimed to strike home.
"I have been hunting at Beaumanoir," replied he extenuatingly; "that must explain, not excuse, my apparent neglect." Bigot felt that he had really been a loser by his absence.
"Hunting! indeed!" Angelique affected a touch of surprise, as if she had not known every tittle of gossip about the gay party and all their doings at the Chateau. "They say game is growing scarce near the city, Chevalier," continued she nonchalantly, "and that a hunting party at Beaumanoir is but a pretty metonomy for a party of pleasure is that true?"
"Quite true, mademoiselle," replied he, laughing. "The two things are perfectly compatible,--like a brace of lovers, all the better for being made one."
"Very gallantly said!" retorted she, with a ripple of dangerous laughter. "I will carry the comparison no farther. Still, I wager, Chevalier, that the game is not worth the hunt."
"The play is always worth the candle, in my fancy," said he, with a glance of meaning; "but there is really good game yet in Beaumanoir, as you will confess, Mademoiselle, if you will honor our party some day with your presence."
"Come now, Chevalier," replied she, fixing him mischievously with her eyes, "tell me, what game do you find in the forest of Beaumanoir?"
"Oh! rabbits, hares, and deer, with now and then a rough bear to try the mettle of our chasseurs."
"What! no foxes to cheat foolish crows? no wolves to devour pretty Red Riding Hoods straying in the forest? Come, Chevalier, there is better game than all that," said she.
"Oh, yes!" he half surmised she was rallying him now--"plenty, but we don't wind horns after them."
"They say," continued she, "there is much fairer game than bird or beast in the forest of Beaumanoir, Chevalier." She went on recklessly, "Stray lambs are picked up by intendants sometimes, and carried tenderly to the Chateau! The Intendant comprehends a gentleman's devoirs to our ***, I am sure."
Bigot understood her now, and gave an angry start. Angelique did not shrink from the temper she had evoked.
"Heavens! how you look, Chevalier!" said she, in a tone of half banter. "One would think I had accused you of murder instead of saving a fair lady's life in the forest; although woman-killing is no murder I believe, by the laws of gallantry, as read by gentlemen-- of fashion."
Bigot rose up with a hasty gesture of impatience and sat down again.
After all, he thought, what could this girl know about Caroline de St. Castin? He answered her with an appearance of frankness, deeming that to be the best policy.
"Yes, Mademoiselle, I one day found a poor suffering woman in the forest. I took her to the Chateau, where she now is. Many ladies beside her have been to Beaumanoir. Many more will yet come and go, until I end my bachelordom and place one there in perpetuity as 'mistress of my heart and home,' as the song says."
Angelique could coquette in half-meanings with any lady of honor at Court. "Well, Chevalier, it will be your fault not to find one fit to place there. They walk every street of the city. But they say this lost and found lady is a stranger?"
"To me she is--not to you, perhaps, Mademoiselle!"
The fine ear of Angelique detected the strain of hypocrisy in his speech. It touched a sensitive nerve. She spoke boldly now.
"Some say she is your wife, Chevalier Bigot!" Angelique gave vent to a feeling long pent-up. She who trifled with men's hearts every day was indignant at the least symptom of repayment in kind. "They say she is your wife or, if not your wife, she ought to be, Chevalier,--and will be, perhaps, one of these fine days, when you have wearied of the distressed damsels of the city."
It had been better for Bigot, better for Angelique, that these two could have frankly understood each other. Bigot, in his sudden admiration of the beauty of this girl, forgot that his object in coming to see her had really been to promote a marriage, in the interests of the Grand Company, between her and Le Gardeur. Her witcheries had been too potent for the man of pleasure. He was himself caught in the net he spread for another. The adroit bird- catching of Angelique was too much for him in the beginning: Bigot's tact and consummate heartlessness with women, might be too much for her in the end. At the present moment he was fairly dazzled with her beauty, spirit, and seductiveness.
"I am a ****** quail," thought he, "to be caught by her piping. Par Dieu! I am going to make a fool of myself if I do not take care!
Such a woman as this I have not found between Paris and Naples. The man who gets her, and knows how to use her, might be Prime Minister of France. And to fancy it--I came here to pick this sweet chestnut out of the fire for Le Gardeur de Repentigny! Francois Bigot! as a man of gallantry and fashion I am ashamed of you!"
These were his thoughts, but in words he replied, "The lady of Beaumanoir is not my wife, perhaps never will be." Angelique's eager question fell on very unproductive ground.
Angelique repeated the word superciliously. "'Perhaps!' 'Perhaps' in the mouth of a woman is consent half won; in the mouth of a man I know it has a laxer meaning. Love has nothing to say to 'perhaps': it is will or shall, and takes no 'perhaps' though a thousand times repeated!
"And you intend to marry this treasure trove of the forest-- perhaps?" continued Angelique, tapping the ground with a daintier foot than the Intendant had ever seen before.