"Mrs."—Madeleine faltered.
"Go on," cried the marchioness, who had commenced her note with the usual formula.
"Mrs. Gilmer!" responded Madeleine.
Madame de Fleury threw down the pen and started up.
"Mrs. Gilmer! Invite Mrs. Gilmer to a ball from which I have purposely excluded her? Invite her when I have the satisfaction of knowing that she is dying of mortification because she cannot get an invitation?—when I have steeled myself against the solicitations of Madame Orlowski? Never! I would rather bear the weight of all the years which she impertinently added to my age."
Madeleine, who was fully prepared for this burst, said, very quietly, and approaching the marchioness,—
"Madame, it is not long since you assured me that it would be a positive happiness to be able to render me a service."
"And I mean it. I would gladly serve you, but not by inviting Mrs. Gilmer to my ball: that is a little too much to demand."
"But this is the service I most need; a service for which I would be deeply grateful,—for which I could never sufficiently thank you,—which would attach me to you as nothing in the past has ever done."
"The offer of your gratitude and the promise of your attachment are, certainly, very touching," said Madame de Fleury, with a scornful petulance which she had never before evinced toward Madeleine; "but I beg leave to decline the indebtedness. You have forced me to remember, for the first time, that when a lady in my station deals with a person in your sphere, it is possible to be too kind, too condescending, too ready to forget necessary distinctions, and thus to draw upon one's self the consequences of that forgetfulness. You have given me a lesson, mademoiselle, by which I shall profit: in future I shall remember the distance between us."