And she touched her breast where, very deeply seated it is to be presumed, she kept her own heart.
“Ah! Madame. Who better?” murmured the Abbé.
“Na, na!” exclaimed Madame de Chantonnay, holding up one hand, heavy with rings, while with the other she gathered her shawl closer about her as if for protection.
“Now you tread on dangerous ground, wicked one—wicked! And you so demure in your soutane!”
But the Abbé only laughed and held up his small glass after the manner of any abandoned layman drinking a toast.
“Madame,” he said, “I drink to the hearts you have broken. And now I go to arrange the card tables, for your guests will soon be coming.”
It was, in fact, Madame de Chantonnay’s Thursday evening to which were bidden such friends as enjoyed for the moment her fickle good graces. The Abbé Touvent was, so to speak, a permanent subscriber to these favours. The task was easy enough, and any endowed with a patience to listen, a readiness to admire that excellent young nobleman, Albert de Chantonnay, and the credulity necessary to listen to the record (more hinted at than clearly spoken) of Madame’s own charms in her youth, could make sure of a game of dominoes on the evening of the third Thursday in the month.
The Abbé bustled about, drawing cards and tables nearer to the lamps, away from the draught of the door, not too near the open wood fire. His movements were dainty, like those of an old maid of the last generation. He hissed through his teeth as if he were working very hard. It served to stimulate a healthy excitement in the Thursday evening of Madame de Chantonnay.
“Oh, I am not uneasy,” said that lady, as she watched him. She had dined well and her digestion had outlived those charms to which she made such frequent reference. “I am not uneasy. He will return, more or less sheepish. He will make some excuse more or less inadequate. He will tell us a story more or less creditable. Allez! Oh, you men. If you intend that chair for Monsieur de Gemosac, it is the wrong one. Monsieur de Gemosac sits high, but his legs are short; give him the little chair that creaks. If he sits too high he is apt to see over the top of one’s cards. And he is so eager to win—the good Marquis.”
“Then he will come to-night despite the cold? You think he will come, Madame?”