“Don’t forget your promise.”
So little did Vandenesse forget this illusive promise that he used it again on Baron Eugene de Rastignac to obtain from him certain other information. Leaving Rastignac’s apartments, he dictated to a street amanuensis the following note to Florine.
“If Mademoiselle Florine wishes to know of a part she may play she
is requested to come to the masked opera at the Opera next Sunday
night, accompanied by Monsieur Nathan.”
To this ball he determined to take his wife and let her own eyes enlighten her as to the relations between Nathan and Florine. He knew the jealous pride of the countess; he wanted to make her renounce her love of her own will, without causing her to blush before him, and then to return to her her own letters, sold by Florine, from whom he expected to be able to buy them. This judicious plan, rapidly conceived and partly executed, might fail through some trick of chance which meddles with all things here below.
After dinner that evening, Felix brought the conversation round to the masked balls of the Opera, remarking that Marie had never been to one, and proposing that she should accompany him the following evening.
“I’ll find you some one to ‘intriguer,’” he said.
“Ah! I wish you would,” she replied.
“To do the thing well, a woman ought to fasten upon some good prey, a celebrity, a man of enough wit to give and take. There’s Nathan; will you have him? I know, through a friend of Florine, certain secrets of his which would drive him crazy.”
“Florine?” said the countess. “Do you mean the actress?”
Marie had already heard that name from the lips of the watchman Quillet; it now shot like a flash of lightning through her soul.