The conversation continued; I shared in it with the greatest calmness, even asserting my superiority, for I was gay, almost brilliant.
For those who were unacquainted with the circumstances, there was nothing extraordinary; it was a pleasant evening of friendly conversation, like a thousand other evenings; but between Catherine and me, a mute, mysterious, tragic scene was being enacted.
Our way of understanding each other by half words, of seeking and divining the value of an inflection of the voice, of a gesture, or a smile, enabled me now to make Catherine undergo the reaction of my odious thoughts.
At my entrance, Catherine was amazed.
She endeavoured, however, to recover herself, and, to show me that she had received people against her will, she graciously thanked M. de —— for having forced an entrance to acquaint her with the result of the vote which had been taken at a very late hour. "Without that," continued Catherine, "I would have been deprived of the pleasure of seeing several of my friends, who took advantage of the breach you made to invade my solitude."
An imploring glance at me accompanied these words. While continuing my conversation with M. de ——, my neighbour, I replied by so scornful a smile that Catherine all but betrayed herself.
What shall I say? All these attempts which she indirectly made to calm me, or to grasp at the cause of so deep a resentment, were thus cruelly repulsed.
She knew too well the various expressions of my countenance, her heart was too much in unison with mine, she was of too sensitive a nature, not to divine that it was not a question of a lover's quarrel, but that a great danger menaced her love.
She had a presentiment of this danger; in despair she sought its cause, and was obliged to smile, and to follow an indifferent conversation.
This torture lasted one hour.