Every night before she slept she saw Montriveau's face; every night it wore a different aspect.Sometimes she saw his bitter smile, sometimes the Jovelike knitting of the brows; or his leonine look, or some disdainful movement of the shoulders made him terrible for her.Next day the card seemed stained with blood.The name of Montriveau stirred her now as the presence of the fiery, stubborn, exacting lover had never done.Her apprehensions gathered strength in the silence.She was forced, without aid from without, to face the thought of a hideous duel of which she could not speak.Her proud hard nature was more responsive to thrills of hate than it had ever been to the caresses of love.Ah! if the General could but have seen her, as she sat with her forehead drawn into folds between her brows;immersed in bitter thoughts in that boudoir where he had enjoyed such happy moments, he might perhaps have conceived high hopes.
Of all human passions, is not pride alone incapable of engendering anything base? Mme de Langeais kept her thoughts to herself, but is it not permissible to suppose that M.de Montriveau was no longer indifferent to her? And has not a man gained ground immensely when a woman thinks about him? He is bound to make progress with her either one way or the other afterwards.
Put any feminine creature under the feet of a furious horse or other fearsome beast; she will certainly drop on her knees and look for death; but if the brute shows a milder mood and does not utterly slay her, she will love the horse, lion, bull, or what not, and will speak of him quite at her ease.The Duchess felt that she was under the lion's paws; she quaked, but she did not hate him.
The man and woman thus singularly placed with regard to each other met three times in society during the course of that week.
Each time, in reply to coquettish questioning glances, the Duchess received a respectful bow, and smiles tinged with such savage irony, that all her apprehensions over the card in the morning were revived at night.Our lives are simply such as our feelings shape them for us; and the feelings of these two had hollowed out a great gulf between themThe Comtesse de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles's sister, gave a great ball at the beginning of the following week, and Mme de Langeais was sure to go to it.Armand was the first person whom the Duchess saw when she came into the room, and this time Armand was looking out for her, or so she thought at least.The two exchanged a look, and suddenly the woman felt a cold perspiration break from every pore.She had thought all along that Montriveau was capable of taking reprisals in some unheard-of way proportioned to their condition, and now the revenge had been discovered, it was ready, heated, and boiling.
Lightnings flashed from the foiled lover's eyes, his face was radiant with exultant vengeance.And the Duchess? Her eyes were haggard in spite of her resolution to be cool and insolent.She went to take her place beside the Comtesse de Serizy, who could not help exclaiming, "Dear Antoinette! what is the matter with you? You are enough to frighten one.""I shall be all right after a quadrille," she answered, giving a hand to a young man who came up at that moment.
Mme de Langeais waltzed that evening with a sort of excitement and transport which redoubled Montriveau's lowering looks.He stood in front of the line of spectators, who were amusing themselves by looking on.Every time that SHE came past him, his eyes darted down upon her eddying face; he might have been a tiger with the prey in his grasp.The waltz came to an end, Mme de Langeais went back to her place beside the Countess, and Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all the while with a stranger.
"One of the things that struck me most on the journey," he was saying (and the Duchess listened with all her ears), "was the remark which the man makes at Westminster when you are shown the axe with which a man in a mask cut off Charles the First's head, so they tell you.The King made it first of all to some inquisitive person, and they repeat it still in memory of him.""What does the man say?" asked Mme de Serizy.
" `Do not touch the axe!' " replied Montriveau, and there was menace in the sound of his voice.
"Really, my Lord Marquis," said Mme de Langeais, "you tell this old story that everybody knows if they have been to London, and look at my neck in such a melodramatic way that you seem to me to have an axe in your hand."The Duchess was in a cold sweat, but nevertheless she laughed as she spoke the last words.
"But circumstances give the story a quite new application,"returned he.
"How so; pray tell me, for pity's sake?"
"In this way, madame--you have touched the axe," said Montriveau, lowering his voice.
"What an enchanting prophecy!" returned she, smiling with assumed grace."And when is my head to fall?""I have no wish to see that pretty head of yours cut off.Ionly fear some great misfortune for you.If your head were clipped close, would you feel no regrets for the dainty golden hair that you turn to such good account?""There are those for whom a woman would love to make such a sacrifice; even if, as often happens, it is for the sake of a man who cannot make allowances for an outbreak of temper.""Quite so.Well, and if some wag were to spoil your beauty on a sudden by some chemical process, and you, who are but eighteen for us, were to be a hundred years old?""Why, the smallpox is our Battle of Waterloo, monsieur," she interrupted."After it is over we find out those who love us sincerely.""Would you not regret the lovely face that?""Oh! indeed I should, but less for my own sake than for the sake of someone else whose delight it might have been.And, after all, if I were loved, always loved, and truly loved, what would my beauty matter to me?--What do you say, Clara?""It is a dangerous speculation," replied Mme de Serizy.