Without replying Balsamo took from his pocket a phial containing a fluid of blood color.
“For the liberty you give me,” he said, “I give you twenty years more youthfulness.”
She slipped the bottle into her corsage and went off, joyous and triumphant.
“They might have been saved but for the coquetry of this woman,” he murmured. “It is the little foot of this courtesan which spurns them into the abyss. Beyond doubt, God is on our side!”
CHAPTER XXX.
THE BLOOD
LADY DUBARRY had not seen the street door close after her before Balsamo hurried up into the room where he had left Lorenza. But she was gone.
Her fine flowered cashmere shawl remained on the cushions as a token of her stay in the room.
A painful thought struck him that she had feigned to sleep. Thus she would have dispelled all uneasiness, doubts and mistrust in her husband’s mind only to flee at the first chance for liberty. This time she would be surer of what to do, instructed by her former experience.
This idea made him bound. He searched without avail after ringing for Fritz to come to him. But nobody was about, as nobody had gone out behind the countess.
To run about, moving the furniture, calling Lorenza, looking without seeing, listening without hearing, thrilling without living, and pondering without thinking—such was the state of the infuriate for three minutes, which were as many ages.