"Go!" said she, "and prove worthy of my gratitude—or my love."
Seizing one of her hands, the chevalier covered it with passionate kisses.
"Such barefaced impudence surpasses everything I could have imagined!" murmured Quennebert: "fortunately, the play is over for to-night; if it had gone on any longer, I should have done something foolish. The lady hardly imagines what the end of the comedy will be."
Neither did Quennebert. It was an evening of adventures. It was written that in the space of two hours Angelique was to run the gamut of all the emotions, experience all the vicissitudes to which a life such as she led is exposed: hope, fear, happiness, mortification, falsehood, love that was no love, intrigue within intrigue, and, to crown all, a totally unexpected conclusion.
[CHAPTER V]
The chevalier was still holding Angelique's hand when a step resounded outside, and a voice was heard.
"Can it be that he has come back?" exclaimed the damsel, hastily freeing herself from the passionate embrace of the chevalier. "It's not possible! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! it's his voice!"
She grew pale to the lips, and stood staring at the door with outstretched arms, unable to advance or recede.
The chevalier listened, but felt sure the approaching voice belonged neither to the commander nor to the treasurer.
"'His voice'?" thought Quennebert to himself. "Can this be yet another aspirant to her favour?"