For a single instant the question shot across her mind, like a flash of lightning, "If men will so judge me, how will judge me, God?" But that gleam of awful light she crushed out, in an instant, like a dying spark in a mass of tinder; and to all the rest she had a ready, and to her convincing, answer, "I shall have triumphed! That is enough! Success is justification!"
Hers was the philosophy of a great modern usurper, applied to domestic life; and the springs which moved her in many of her proceedings, were not very different from his own.
The next consideration was the government of her brother; and step by step, through the hall and up the stairs, the incredible rapidity of thought brought her to new conclusions; not a footfall but had its thousand questions and replies in her own breast, its examination of plans and results, its calculations of character, its meditation of weakness, and its application of the means to the end. Half a lifetime was spent between the court and her own apartments--I mean thoughts that would have filled half a lifetime better disposed; but when she reached her own door, her mind was calm and clear; and she entered with the full assurance of overruling all opposition, extinguishing all suspicion, working out her own schemes, in despite of every combination of circumstances against her, ay! and of taking revenge, and closing the tomb over one of the chief sources of doubt and anxiety for the future.
The large ante-room in which her maids slept was vacant, for they were engaged with their mistress's dress in the chamber beyond; and with a smiling countenance, as if all memory of the ceremony just past, had left her on the staircase, she invited her brother with somewhat formal courtesy to be seated, closed the door, and then began, without waiting to be questioned.
"Well, Anthony," she said; "I thought I knew every turn and wile of a woman's heart.--I have a good right to know; for I do not think there are many women who have dealt more in matters of policy, public and private, than I have done;" she added these words in a tone of gay candor, which she knew would not be without its effect. "But yet I have found one to go beyond me: and, for a time, to overpower me--till I discovered the truth. When I went from you to Rose d'Albret, I found her in a high and haughty mood, ready to treat remonstrance with contempt, and evidently wishing to be pressed, if not forced, so that she might cast any blame in point of haste on us, and justify herself. Her conduct and her tone provoked me,--foolishly I will allow, and I did,--sillily enough--what I ought not to have done. I told her of the discovery we have made, of Chazeul's visit to her chamber--which I should have studiously avoided; but I was off my guard--"
"I do not see that," said Monsieur de Liancourt: "why should you have avoided it? I should tell her the first thing, as the motive which made me urge the marriage upon her."
"Ay! that is very well for you, brother," replied Madame de Chazeul, "but you stood in a different position. You have a right, not only to speak such truths, but to command the only conduct which can take away the sting from them. I should have remembered that, for me to show I knew the fact, would but irritate her to resistance and denial, and to efforts for her exculpation, even to resistance, of the only remedy for the evil situation in which she has placed herself; just as mad people deny they are insane, and refuse the medicines which might soothe their brains. In an instant, she had a story ready. She had not slept in that room, she said; and gave me to understand that she had passed the night in the adjoining chamber. Seeing the error I had committed, I replied, that it might be so, but that the injury to her reputation was the same, and that the only remedy for that was her immediate marriage with my son."
"In which chamber did she say she slept?" demanded the Count.
But Madame de Chazeul did not wish to be brought to the point, and replied, "I do not well know; there is one on the right, and one on the left, you know. However, I told her that you took the same view that I did; and that you had sworn, in the most solemn manner, she should be Chazeul's wife before noon to-day."
"Did I swear?" asked Monsieur de Liancourt, in a low voice.