Marianne felt herself beaten. She was like a gambler who loses a decisive game. Evidently, Rosas only showed more clearly by the action he had taken, how much he was smitten; she measured his love by her own dismay; but what was the good of that love, if the duke escaped in a cowardly fashion?—But where could she find him? Where follow him? Where write to him?—A man who runs about as he does! A madman! Perhaps on arriving at Dover he had already re-embarked for Japan or Australia.
"Ah! the unexpected happens, it seems," thought Marianne, laughing maliciously, as she considered the ludicrousness of her failure.
"Madame, we are going—?" indifferently asked the coachman, who was tired of waiting.
"Where you please—to the Bois!"
"Very good, madame."
He looked at his huge aluminum watch, coolly remarking:
"It was a quarter of twelve when I took Madame—"
"Good! good!—to the Bois!"
The movement of the carriage, the sight of the passers-by, the sunlight playing on the fountains and the paving-stones of the Place de la Concorde fully occupied Marianne's mind, although irritating her at the same time. All the cheerfulness attending the awakening spring, delightful as it is in Paris, seemed irony to her. She felt again, but with increased bitterness, all the sentiments she experienced a few mornings previously when she called on Guy and told him of her burdensome weariness and distaste of life. Of what use was she now? She had just built so many fond dreams on hope! And all her edifices had crumbled.
"All has to be recommenced. To lead the stupid life of a needy, lost, harassed woman; no, that is too ridiculous, too sad! What then—" she said to herself, as with fixed eyes she gazed into the infinite and discovered no solution.