He made no answer and went.
When Charles was no longer there, when his empty chair spoke for him, regrets flocked in upon her, and she found fault with herself. Passion makes an immense advance as soon as a woman persuades herself that she has failed somewhat in generosity or hurt a noble nature. In love there is never any need to be on our guard against the worst in us; that is a safeguard; a woman only surrenders at the summons of a virtue. “The floor of hell is paved with good intentions,”—it is no preacher’s paradox.
Vandenesse stopped away for several days. Every evening at the accustomed hour the Marquise sat expectant in remorseful impatience. She could not write—that would be a declaration, and, moreover, her instinct told her that he would come back. On the sixth day he was announced, and never had she heard the name with such delight. Her joy frightened her.
“You have punished me well,” she said, addressing him.
Vandenesse gazed at her in astonishment.
“Punished?” he echoed. “And for what?” He understood her quite well, but he meant to be avenged for all that he had suffered as soon as she suspected it.
“Why have you not come to see me?” she demanded with a smile.
“Then you have seen no visitors?” asked he, parrying the question.
“Yes. M. de Ronquerolles and M. de Marsay and young d’Escrignon came and stayed for nearly two hours, the first two yesterday, the last this morning. And besides, I have had a call, I believe, from Mme. Firmiani and from your sister, Mme. de Listomere.”
Here was a new infliction, torture which none can comprehend unless they know love as a fierce and all-invading tyrant whose mildest symptom is a monstrous jealousy, a perpetual desire to snatch away the beloved from every other influence.