The marquise's agitation visibly increased; and Sarah, whose quick eye easily perceived it, continued:
"The last time I saw him he looked even paler than usual."
"He has been very much out of health lately."
"My dearest Clémence, will you permit me to speak to you without reserve?"
"Oh, yes, pray do!"
"How comes it that the least allusion to your husband always throws you into such a state of extraordinary alarm and uneasiness?"
"What an idea! Is it possible you can mean it seriously?" asked poor Madame d'Harville, trying to smile.
"Indeed, I am quite in earnest," rejoined her companion; "whenever you are speaking of him, your countenance assumes, even in spite of yourself,—but how shall I make myself understood?" and Sarah, with the tone and fixed gaze of one who wished to read the most secret thoughts of the person she addressed, slowly and emphatically added, "a look of mingled aversion and fear!"
The fixed pallid features of Madame d'Harville at first defied even Sarah's practised eye, but her keen gaze soon detected a slight convulsive working of the mouth, with a tremulous movement of the under lip of her victim; but feeling it unsafe to pursue the subject farther at this moment so as to awaken the marquise's mistrust of her friendly intentions, by way, therefore, of concealing her real suspicions, she continued:
"Yes, just that sort of dislike any woman would entertain for a peevish, jealous, ill-tempered—"