"Permit me to interrupt your highness," returned Adrienne, in a tone of perfect amenity, as if she were addressing the most flattering compliments to her visitor."To put you quite at your ease with the lady here, I will begin by informing you that she is quite aware of all the holy perfidies, pious wrongs, and devout infamies, of which you nearly made me the victim.She knows that you are a mother of the Church, such as one sees but few of in these days.May I hope, therefore, that your highness will dispense with this delicate and interesting reserve?"
"Really," said the princess, with a sort of incensed amazement, "I scarcely know if I wake or sleep."
"Dear me!" said Adrienne, in apparent alarm; "this doubt as to the state of your faculties is very shocking, madame.I see that the blood flies to your head, for your face sufficiently shows it; you seem oppressed, confined, uncomfortable--perhaps (we women may say so between ourselves), perhaps you are laced a little too tightly, madame?"
These words, pronounced by Adrienne with an air of warm interest and perfect simplicity, almost choked the princess with rage.She became crimson, seated herself abruptly, and exclaimed: "Be it so, madame! I prefer this reception to any other.It puts me at my ease, as you say."
"Does it indeed, madame?" said Adrienne, with a smile."You may now at least speak frankly all that you feel, which must for you have the charm of novelty! Confess that you are obliged to me for enabling you, even for a moment, to lay aside that mask of piety, amiability, and goodness, which must be so troublesome to you."
As she listened to the sarcasms of Adrienne (an innocent and excusable revenge, if we consider all the wrongs she had suffered), Mother Bunch felt her heart sink within her; for she dreaded the malignity of the princess, who replied, with the utmost calmness: "A thousand thanks, madame, for your excellent intentions and sentiments.I appreciate them as I ought, and I hope in a short time to prove it to you."
"Well, madame," said Adrienne, playfully, "let us have it all at once.I am full of impatient curiosity."
"And yet," said the princess, feigning in her turn a bitter and ironical delight, "you are far from having the least notion of what I am about to announce to you."
"Indeed! I fear that your highness's candor and modesty deceive you,"
replied Adrienne, with the same mocking affability; "for there are very few things on your part that can surprise me, madame.You must be aware that from your highness, I am prepared for anything."
"Perhaps, madame," said the princess, laying great stress on her words, "if, for instance, I were to tell you that within twenty-four hours--
suppose between this and to-morrow-thou will be reduced to poverty--"
This was so unexpected, that Mdlle.de Cardoville started in spite of herself, and Mother Bunch shuddered.
"Ah, madame!" said the princess, with triumphant joy and cruel mildness, as she watched the growing surprise of her niece, "confess that I have astonished you a little.You were right in giving to our interview the turn it has taken.I should have needed all sorts of circumlocution to say to you, `Niece, to-morrow you will be as poor as you are rich to-
day.' But now I can tell you the fact quite plainly and simply."
Recovering from her first amazement, Adrienne replied, with a calm smile, which checked the joy of the princess: "Well, I confess frankly, madame, that you have surprised me; I expected from you one of those black pieces of malignity, one of those well-laid plots, in which you are known to excel, and I did not think you would make all this fuss about such a trifle."
"To be ruined--completely ruined," cried the princess."and that by to-
morrow--you that have been so prodigal, will see your house, furniture, horses, jewels, even the ridiculous dresses of which you are so vain, all taken from you--do you call that a trifle? You, that spend with indifference thousands of louis, will be reduced to a pension inferior to the wages you gave your foot-boy--do you call that a trifle?"
To her aunt's cruel disappointment, Adrienne, who appeared quite to have recovered her serenity was about to answer accordingly, when the door suddenly opened, and, without being announced, Prince Djalma entered the room.A proud and tender expression of delight beamed from the radiant brow of Adrienne at sight of the prince, and it is impossible to describe the look of triumphant happiness and high disdain that she cast upon the Princess de Saint-Dizier.Djalma himself had never looked more handsome, and never had more intense happiness been impressed on a human countenance.The Hindoo wore a long robe of white Cashmere, adorned with innumerable stripes of gold and purple; his turban was of the same color and material; a magnificent figured shawl was twisted about his waist.
On seeing the Indian, whom she had not hoped to meet at Mdlle.de Cardoville's, the Princess de Saint-Dizier could not at first conceal her extreme surprise.It was between these four, then, that the following scene took place.