Florestan had given way to these excessively vain-glorious reflections as he traversed three or four apartments, which led to a small room in which the duchess usually sat. A last look at himself in a glass which he passed completed the excellent opinion which Florestan had of himself. The valet de chambre opened the folding-doors of the salon, and announced, "Monsieur the Vicomte de Saint-Remy!"
It is impossible to paint the astonishment and indignation of the duchess. She believed the comte had not concealed from his son that she also had overheard all.
We have already said that, on discovering Florestan's infamy, Madame de Lucenay's love, suddenly quenched, had changed into the most frigid disdain. We have also said that, in the midst of her errors, her frailties, Madame de Lucenay had preserved pure and intact her feelings of rectitude, honour, and chivalric frankness, whose strength and requirements were excessively strong. She possessed the better qualities of her faults, the virtues of her vices.
Treating love as cavalierly as a man treats it, she pushed as far, nay, further, than a man, devotion, generosity, courage, and, above all, intense horror of all baseness. Madame de Lucenay, being about to go to a party in the evening, was, although without her diamonds, dressed with her accustomed taste and magnificence; and her splendid costume, the rouge she wore without attempt at concealment, like a court lady, up to her eyelids, her beauty, which was especially brilliant at candle-light, her figure of a goddess walking in the clouds, rendered still more striking that noble air which no one displayed to greater advantage than she did, and which she carried, if requisite, to a height of insolence that was overwhelming.
We know the haughty and resolute disposition of the duchess, and we may imagine her physiognomy, her look, when the vicomte, advancing towards her, conceited, smiling, confident, said, in a tone of love:
"Dearest Clotilde, how good you are! How you—"
The vicomte could not finish. The duchess was seated, and had not risen; but her gesture, her glance, betokened contempt, at once so calm and crushing that Florestan stopped short. He could not utter another word, nor advance another step. He had never before seen Madame de Lucenay under this aspect. He could not believe that it was the same woman, whom he had always found gentle, tender, and passionately submissive; for nothing is more humble, more timid, than a determined woman in the presence of the man whom she loves and who controls her.
His first surprise past, Florestan was ashamed of his weakness; his habitual audacity resumed its ascendency, and, making a step towards Madame de Lucenay in order to take her hand, he said, in his most insinuating tone:
"Clotilde, what ails you? I never saw you look so lovely, and yet—"
"Really, this is too impudent!" exclaimed the duchess, recoiling with such disgust and hauteur that Florestan was again overcome with surprise.