“I have not weighed Monsieur de Sartines,” she said, rising to rejoin Madame de Courcelles, who was approaching on the arm of the minister, “but I have weighed Monsieur Rochefort, and I find him——” she hesitated with a charming smile upon her lips.
“And you have found him——?”
“Wanting.”
Next moment she was passing away with Madame de Courcelles, and Rochefort found himself face to face with the Minister of Police.
At the word “wanting,” she had swept him from head to foot with her eyes, and the charming smile had turned into an expression of contemptuous indifference worse than a blow in the face. It was the secret of her loveliness that it could burn one up, or freeze one, or entrance one at will. Rochefort had been playing with a terrible thing, and for the first time in his life he felt like a fool. He had often been a fool, but he had never felt like a fool before.
“Well,” said de Sartines, with a cynical smile, “and what have we been talking about to Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“Why,” said the young man, recovering himself, “the last subject we were discussing was your weight, Sartines.”
“My weight?”
“She said that you impressed her as being rather heavy.”
He turned away and walked off, mixing with the crowd, trying to stifle his mortification, his fingers clutching his lace ruffles and his eyes glancing hither and thither for someone to pick a quarrel with or say a bitter thing to. He found no one of this sort, but he found Mademoiselle Fontrailles. Twice in the crowd he passed her, and each time her eyes swept over him without betraying the least spark of recognition.