ANGELIQUE-LOUISE DE GUERCHI was a woman of about twenty-eight years of age,tall,dark,and well made.The loose life she had led had,it is true,somewhat staled her beauty,marred the delicacy of her complexion,and coarsened the naturally elegant curves of her figure;but it is such women who from time immemorial have had the strongest attraction for profligate men.It seems as if dissipation destroyed the power to perceive true beauty,and the man of pleasure must be aroused to admiration by a bold glance and a meaning smile,and will only seek satisfaction along the trail left by vice.
Louise-Angelique was admirably adapted for her way of life;not that her features wore an expression of shameless effrontery,or that the words that passed her lips bore habitual testimony to the disorders of her existence,but that under a calm and sedate demeanour there lurked a secret and indefinable charm.Many other women possessed more regular features,but none of them had a greater power of seduction.We must add that she owed that power entirely to her physical perfections,for except in regard to the devices necessary to her calling,she showed no cleverness,being ignorant,dull and without inner resources of any kind.As her temperament led her to share the desires she excited,she was really incapable of resisting an attack conducted with skill and ardour,and if the Duc de Vitry had not been so madly in love,which is the same as saying that he was hopelessly blind,silly,and dense to everything around him,he might have found a score of opportunities to overcome her resistance.
We have already seen that she was so straitened in money matters that she had been driven to try to sell her jewels that very,morning.
Jeannin was the first to 'break silence.
"You are astonished at my visit,I know,my charming Angelique.But you must excuse my thus appearing so unexpectedly before you.The truth is,I found it impossible to leave Paris without seeing you once more.""Thank you for your kind remembrance,"said she,"but I did not at all expect it.""Come,come,you are offended with me."
She gave him a glance of mingled disdain and resentment;but he went on,in a timid,wistful tone--"I know that my conduct must have seemed strange to you,and Iacknowledge that nothing can justify a man for suddenly leaving the woman he loves--I do not dare to say the woman who loves him--without a word of explanation.But,dear Angelique,I was jealous.""Jealous!"she repeated incredulously.
"I tried my best to overcome the feeling,and I hid my suspicions from you.Twenty times I came to see you bursting with anger and determined to overwhelm you with reproaches,but at the sight of your beauty I forgot everything but that I loved you.My suspicions dissolved before a smile;one word from your lips charmed me into happiness.But when I was again alone my terrors revived,I saw my rivals at your feet,and rage possessed me once more.Ah!you never knew how devotedly I loved you."She let him speak without interruption;perhaps the same thought was in her mind as in Quennebert's,who,himself a past master in the art of lying;was thinking--"The man does not believe a word of what he is saying."But the treasurer went on--
"I can see that even now you doubt my sincerity.""Does my lord desire that his handmaiden should be blunt?Well,Iknow that there is no truth in what you say.""Oh!I can see that you imagine that among the distractions of the world I have kept no memory of you,and have found consolation in the love of less obdurate fair ones.I have not broken in on your retirement;I have not shadowed your steps;I have not kept watch on your actions;I have not surrounded you with spies who would perhaps have brought me the assurance,'If she quitted the world which outraged her,she was not driven forth by an impulse of wounded pride or noble indignation;she did not even seek to punish those who misunderstood her by her absence;she buried herself where she was unknown,that she might indulge in stolen loves.'Such were the thoughts that came to me,and yet I respected your hiding-place;and to-day I am ready to believe you true,if you will merely say,'Ilove no one else!'"
Jeannin,who was as fat as a stage financier,paused here to gasp;for the utterance of this string of banalities,this rigmarole of commonplaces,had left him breathless.He was very much dissatisfied with his performance;and ready to curse his barren imagination.He longed to hit upon swelling phrases and natural and touching gestures,but in vain.He could only look at Mademoiselle de Guerchi with a miserable,heart-broken air.She remained quietly seated,with the same expression of incredulity on her features.
So there was nothing for it but to go on once more.
"But this one assurance that I ask you will not give.So what Ihave--been told is true:you have given your love to him."She could not check a startled movement.
"You see it is only when I speak of him that I can overcome in you the insensibility which is killing me.My suspicions were true after all:you deceived me for his sake.Oh!the instinctive feeling of jealousy was right which forced me to quarrel with that man,to reject the perfidious friendship which he tried to force upon me.He has returned to town,and we shall meet!But why do I say 'returned'?Perhaps he only pretended to go away,and safe in this retreat has flouted with impunity,my despair and braved my vengeance!"Up to this the lady had played a waiting game,but now she grew quite confused,trying to discover the thread of the treasurer's thoughts.
