“Confess that he has cause. Therefore you must not prolong this visit; he might take it amiss. As soon as any one arrives—” and she added with a smile, “some one is going to arrive—you must go. You have to keep up appearance, you know. Remember his manner when he left us to-night.”
I was tempted to interpret this adventure as a trap, but as she noticed the impression made by her words, she added:
“Oh, he was very much gayer when he was superintending the arrangement of the cabinet I told you about. That was before my marriage. This passage leads to my apartment. Alas! it testifies to the cunning artifices to which Monsieur de T——- has resorted in protecting his love for me.”
“How pleasant it would be,” I said to her, keenly excited by the curiosity she had roused in me, “to take vengeance in this spot for the insults which your charms have suffered, and to seek to make restitution for the pleasures of which you have been robbed.”
She doubtless thought this remark in good taste, but she said: “You promised to be good!”
I threw a veil over the follies which every age will pardon to youth, on the ground of so many balked desires and bitter memories. In the morning, scarcely raising her liquid eyes, Madame de T——-, fairer than ever, said to me:
“Now will you ever love the countess as much as you do me?”
I was about to answer when her maid, her confidante, appeared saying:
“You must go. It is broad daylight, eleven o’clock, and the chateau is already awake.”