If a thunderbolt had fallen at the feet of M. Pascal he could not have been more astonished. He could not believe his eyes, and read the card a second time soliloquising:
"The Marquise de Miranda! She is a marquise, then? Bah! she is a marquise as Lola Montès is a countess—petticoat nobility; but at any rate it is she. She here! in my house at the very moment I was taxing my wits to contrive a meeting with her. Ah, Pascal, my friend Pascal, your star of gold, for a moment hidden, shines at last in all its brilliancy. And she comes here under the pretext of a letter of credit. Come, come, Pascal, my friend, keep calm; one does not find such an opportunity twice in his life. Think now, if you are sly, you can take the mistress of the prince and the wife of the blond youth in the same net. Ah, how my heart beats! I am sure I most look pale."
"Monsieur, what shall I answer this lady?" asked the valet, astonished at the prolonged silence of his master.
"One minute, you rascal; wait my orders," replied Pascal, abruptly. "Come, keep calm, keep calm," thought he to himself. "Excitement now would lose all, would paralyse my plans. It is a terrible part to play, but having such a fine game at hand, I believe I would blow my brains out with rage if, through awkwardness now, I should lose it."
After another silence, during which he succeeded in mastering his agitation, he said to himself:
"I am calm now. Let her come, I can play a sure game." Then he said aloud to his valet:
"Show the lady in."
The servant went out and soon returned to open the door and announce, "Madame the Marquise de Miranda."
Madeleine, contrary to her custom, was dressed, as she had said to the prince, no longer like a grandmother, but with a dainty elegance which rendered her beauty still more irresistible. A Pamela hat of rice straw, ornamented with ears of corn mingled with corn-flowers, relieved and revealed her face and neck; a new gown of white muslin, also strewn with corn-flowers, delineated the outlines of her incomparable figure, the finished type of refined elegance, the voluptuous flexibility characteristic of Mexican Creoles, while her gauze scarf rose and fell in gentle undulations with the tranquil breathing of her marble bosom.