“Sleep!”
Scarcely was the word pronounced before Lorenza bent like a lily on its stalk; her swinging head inclined and leaned on the sofa cushions; her dead white hands slid down by her sides, rustling her silky dress.
Seeing how beautiful she was, Balsamo went up to her and placed a kiss on her brow.
Thereupon her whole countenance brightened up, as if the breath from Love’s own lips had dispelled the cloud; her mouth tremulously parted, her eyes swam in voluptuous tears, and she sighed like those angels may have sighed for the sons of man, when the world was young.
For an instant the mesmerist contemplated her as one unable to break off his ecstasy but as the bell rang again, he sprang to the fireplace, touched a spring to make the black plate swing aside like a door and so entered the house in Saint Claude Street.
In a parlor was a German servant confronting a man in courier’s attire and in horseman’s boots armed with large spurs. The vulgar visage announced one lowly born and yet his eyes were kindled with a spark of the holy fire which one superior’s mind may light.
His left hand leaned on a clubhandled whip while with his right he made signs which Balsamo understood, for he tapped his forehead with his forefinger to imply the same. The postilion’s hand then flew to his breast where he made a new sign which the uninitiated would have taken for undoing a button. To this the count responded by showing a ring on his finger.
“The Grand Master,” muttered the envoy, bending the knee to this redoubtable token.
“Whence come you?” asked Balsamo.
“From Rouen last. I am courier to the Duchess of Grammont, in whose service the Great Copt placed me with the order to have no secrets from the Master.”