The beautiful woman looked at the energetic speaker haughtily and discontentedly. She was not a little disappointed. She had thought her influence over her suitor unbounded, but now it appeared that it had its limits. She, however, did not despair. Well knowing the wonderful fascination she possessed for men, she determined to bring all its batteries to bear upon Captain Joliette. She was bent on wreaking a terrible vengeance upon the Count of Monte-Cristo for some mysterious injury he had inflicted on her in the past, an injury in regard to which she refused to be communicative even to her accepted lover, and was resolved that Joliette should give the highest proof of his devotion to her by becoming the instrument of that vengeance.
With the shrewdness of an experienced woman of the world, she readily saw that a special effort would be required on her part to bend the gallant soldier to her will and compel him to execute her inexorable purpose. She would make that special effort and, in making it, would render herself so captivating, so enticing, so desirable that Joliette could not fail to be intoxicated with her charms and fascinations. Then under the mad sway of his blind passion, excited to the utmost, he would be ready to do anything for her, anything, even to the commission of a crime, even to shedding the blood of his dearest friend!
At this juncture Mlle. d' Armilly, turning from the Captain as if in high displeasure, for it was an important part of her plan to assume a certain degree of coldness towards him at first, touched a bell and immediately her brother Léon and her maid appeared.
"Franchette," she said, addressing the latter, "assist me with my street toilet. I have sufficiently recovered to return to the Hôtel de France."
Unmindful of the presence of the Captain and Léon, the designing prima donna at once began to remove the costume she had worn during the opera. The maid aided her in this operation with the outward impassibility of theatrical servants, though she imperceptibly smiled as she realized that this display of her mistress' personal charms was made solely for the purpose of rendering the young soldier still more the slave of that artful siren.
As Mlle. d' Armilly stood in her corset and clinging skirts of spotless white that delicately outlined her faultless shape, her fine throat, shoulders and arms displaying their glowing brilliancy, Captain Joliette gazed at her like one entranced. Never in all his life, he thought, had he looked upon a woman so thoroughly beautiful, so goddess-like. She was as perfect as a painting of Venus, and a thousand times more lovely for being alive. He held his breath as he saw her bosom palpitate and felt that he would give all he possessed in the world to call her his own, to be with her forever.
Léon seemed somewhat abashed by his sister's proceeding and blushed like a girl, the crimson tide giving his countenance a beauty altogether feminine.
The toilet operation completed, Mlle. d' Armilly surveyed herself triumphantly in the mirror. She was well aware that she had riveted her chains very tightly upon her lover, but, for all that, she could tell only by actual experiment if he were sufficiently under her dominion to accede to her wishes concerning the Count of Monte-Cristo. Hence she determined to make that experiment without delay, ere cool reflection had come to the dazzled warrior's aid and enabled him to realize that a trap had been laid for him.
Quitting the mirror, she went to Captain Joliette's side and, placing her hand on his arm, as she threw into his eyes all the magnetism of her glance, said, in a dulcet tone: