"I know nothing about it!—I wish to leave! Now, I have no more parading to make in this ball, I think, I have no longer to receive the guests whose insulting smiles were like blows! I will go, go!"
"Adrienne!"
"Will go at once!"
She felt no astonishment at hearing the name Adrienne spoken suddenly and unreflectingly by Guy de Lissac.
She looked at him with a glance that reached his soul, not knowing what she said:
"Leave now! While the ball is in progress. To leave solitude to him, suddenly—here! And that woman, if he wishes her, and if the other who is marrying her will yield her to him!"
She was carried away, her mind wandered, as if unbalanced by her grief, all her efforts at self-control ending in a relaxation of her strained nerves.
"I will leave!—I do not wish to see him again!"
"Leave to-night?"
"For Grenoble—I don't know where!—But to fly from him; ah! yes; to escape from him! Take me away, Monsieur de Lissac!" she said distractedly, as she seized his hand. "I should go mad here!"