She suddenly stopped and this name escaped her lips: José—Joseph!
Nevertheless, this was one of the vexations of this girl: she was angry because she had acted rightly. Others suffer remorse for their ill deeds, but she suffered for her virtue. She often thought of the Duc de Rosas, as her mother Eve must have thought of Paradise lost. She would have stirred, astonished, conquered, crushed Paris, if she had been the mistress of Rosas.
"What then! Whose fault was it? How foolish of one not to dare everything!"
Now see how suddenly and unexpectedly, just as an adversary might offer an opportunity for revenge, chance, at the turning-point of her life, had brought back to Paris this José whom she had never forgotten, and who perhaps remembered her, and by whom she would be recognized most assuredly, in any case. It was an unhoped, unlooked-for opportunity that restored Marianne's faith in herself, superstitious as she was, like all successful gamblers.
She had fallen, but how she could raise herself by the arms of the duke! One must be determined.
Guy and Sabine were met on the way, like two helpers. She profited by this circumstance, using the one to reach the other and to gain Rosas from the latter. She bore a grudge, nevertheless, against Guy de Lissac, the insolent and silly fellow who had formerly left her. Bah! before taking vengeance on him, it was most important to make use of him, and, after all, revenge is so wearisome and useless.
Now Kayser's niece, Guy's mistress, a woman who had given herself or who had been taken, who had sold herself or who had been purchased, a young girl who remained so in features, gracefulness and the virgin charms that clothed her courtesan's body—her smile a virgin's, her glance full of frolic—Marianne was now within a few feet of him whom she expected, wishing for him as a seducer desires a woman.
"If he has loved me one moment, one single moment, Rosas will love me," she thought.
The salon was stiflingly hot, but Marianne was determined to keep herself in the first row, to be directly under the eye of the duke.
She felt the waves of over-heated air rise to her temples, and at times she feared that she would faint, half-stifled as she was and unaccustomed now to attend soirées. She remained, however, looking anxiously toward the door, watching for the appearance of the traveller and wondering when the pale face of the Spaniard would show itself.