“You shall not do that, aunt,” Clemence interrupted, sitting up in bed and trying to take her aunt’s hand.
“If you wish that your discourteous conduct should rest a secret between us, I advise you to get rid of your neuralgia this very day. Now, you had better decide immediately—”
“This is genuine persecution,” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim, falling back upon her bed when the old lady had departed. “He has bewitched everybody! Aline, my aunt, and my husband; to say nothing of myself, for I shall end by going mad. I must end this, at any price.” She rang the bell violently.
“Justine,” said she to her maid, “do not let any one enter this room under any pretext whatsoever, and do not come in yourself until I ring; I will try to sleep.”
Justine obeyed, after closing the blinds. She had hardly gone out when her mistress arose, put on her dressing-gown and slippers with a vivacity which betokened anger; she then seated herself at her desk and began to write rapidly, dashing her pen over the satiny paper without troubling herself as to blots. The last word was ended with a dash as energetically drawn as the Napoleonic flourish.
When a young man who, according to custom, begins to read the end of his letters first finds an arabesque of this style at the bottom of a lady’s letter, he ought to arm himself with patience and resignation before he reads its contents.
CHAPTER X. PLOTS
That evening, when Gerfaut entered his room he hardly took time to place the candlestick which he held in his hand upon the mantel before he took from his waistcoat pocket a paper reduced to microscopic dimensions, which he carried to his lips and kissed passionately before opening. His eyes fell first upon the threatening flourish of the final word; this word was: Adieu!
“Hum!” said the lover, whose exaltation was sensibly cooled at this sight.