“Thank you,” he said, sadly, suspecting that perhaps it was already too late—“thank you.” Then he turned to go, and, in fact, he had already opened the door, when a forlorn hope brought him back to Mademoiselle Marguerite, whose hand he took, timidly faltering, “We are friends, are we not?”
She did not withdraw her icy hand, and in a scarcely audible voice, she repeated: “We are friends?”
Convinced that he could obtain nothing more from her than her promised neutrality, the lieutenant thereupon hastily left the room, and she sank back in her chair more dead than alive. “Great God! what is coming now?” she murmured.
She thought she could understand the unfortunate young man’s intentions, and she listened with a throbbing heart, expecting to hear a stormy explanation between his parents and himself. In point of fact, she almost immediately afterward heard the lieutenant inquire in a stern, imperious voice: “Where is my father?”
“The General has just gone to his club.”
“And my mother?”
“A friend of hers called a few moments ago to take her to the opera.”
“What madness!”
That was all. The outer door opened and closed again with extreme violence, and then Marguerite heard nothing save the sneering remarks of the servants.
It was, indeed, madness on the part of M. and Madame de Fondege not to have waited to learn the result of this interview, planned by themselves, and upon which their very lives depended. But delirium seemed to have seized them since, thanks to a still inexplicable crime, they had suddenly found themselves in possession of an immense fortune. Perhaps in this wild pursuit of pleasure, in the haste they displayed to satisfy their covetous longings, they hoped to forget or silence the threatening voice of conscience. Such was Mademoiselle Marguerite’s conclusion; but she was not long left to undisturbed meditation. By the lieutenant’s departure the restrictions which had been placed upon the servants’ movements had evidently been removed, for they came in to clear the table.