"One instant, madame; I ought to warn you that while it is a magic talisman in my hands, it will lose all its virtue in yours. My work is even more valuable than you think. Where the multitude sees only a jewel, we artists sometimes conceal an idea. Do you wish me to show you this idea, madame? Nothing is easier: look, all that is necessary is to press this invisible spring. The stalk opens, as you see, and in the heart of the flower we find, not a gnawing worm, as in some natural flowers and some false hearts, but something similar, worse it may be,—the dishonor of the Duchesse d'Etampes, written with her own hand and signed by her."
As he spoke, Benvenuto pressed the spring, opened the stalk, and took out the letter. He slowly unfolded it, and showed it, open, to the duchess, pale with wrath, and stricken dumb with dismay.
"You hardly expected this, did you, madame?" said Benvenuto, coolly, folding the letter once more, and replacing it in the lily. "If you knew my ways, madame, you would be less surprised. A year ago I concealed a ladder in a statuette; a month ago I concealed a maiden in a statue. What was there that I could hide away in a flower to-day? A bit of paper, that was all, and that is what I have done."
"But that letter," cried the duchess, "that infernal letter I burned with my own hands: I saw the flame and touched the ashes!"
"Did you read the letter you burned?"
"No! no! madwoman that I was, I did not read it!"
"That is too bad, for you would be convinced now that the letter of a grisette will make as much flame and ashes as the letter of a duchess."
"Why, then, Ascanio, the dastard, deceived me!"
"Oh madame! pray pause! Do not suspect that pure and innocent child, who, even if he had deceived you, would have done no more than turn against you the weapons you used against him. Oh no, no! he did not deceive you; he would not purchase his own life or Colombe's by deceit! No, he was himself deceived."
"By whom? Pray tell me that."