He followed, still holding her hand and led as a blind man is led, up the stairs, to a landing, to a door.
The woman pushed the door open, and they entered a room lit by a lamp and with the remnants of a fire in the grate.
The light of the lamp struck on the woman’s face. It was Javotte.
Rochefort dropped her hand, stared round him, and then at the girl who was standing before him with a smile on her lips.
Never had Javotte looked prettier. Though a girl of the people, she had a refinement of her own; compared to Camille, she was the wild violet compared to the cultivated violet, the essential charm was the same; but to Rochefort, suddenly disillusioned, she had neither charm nor grace.
“You!” said he, drawing back and walking towards the window.
The smile vanished from her lips, they trembled, and then, just as if it had started from her lips, a little shiver went all through her.
In a flash, she understood all; he had not discovered her window by some miraculous means, he had not come to see her, he did not care for her. It was her mistress for whom this visit was intended. Ever since he had kissed her in the corridor of the Hôtel Dubarry, she had dreamed of him, looked for him, fancied that he would come to seek her. He had come, but not for her.
The blow to her love, her pride, and her life was brutal in its directness, yet she took it standing, and after the first moment almost without flinching. She had come of a race to whom pride had been denied, a race accustomed to the Droit de Seigneur, the whip of the noble and the disdain of the aristocrat, yet the woman in her found the pride that hides suffering, and can find and place its hand even on disdain.
“Monsieur,” said Javotte, “I am sorry, but my mistress is from home.”