Yet he was not without his consolation, and he availed himself of it almost intemperately. To every new cajolery which Turbo could invent to win over the Commander-in-chief, M. de Tricotrin had one overwhelming answer, and that was his daughter. Mlle de Tricotrin, having been initiated into the whole plot, consented to obey her father's instructions, and make desperate love to the soft-hearted General, or rather to allow him to make love to her.
Could anything have added to the unhappy girl's misery, it would have been this. The old beau's gallantries were insufferable after the splendid homage of Kophetua; and the abasement under which she groaned at having to endure them with a smile was proportional to the self-respect which the King's chivalrous admiration had revived. She hated and despised herself more than ever. The memory of Penelophon's betrayal pricked and scourged her into a deep melancholy. By it she had lost not only the new-born faith in herself, but her earthly paradise as well. For as such she knew it now—the life that might have been hers. She knew that at last she loved the man whom at first she only desired. She felt she could give the whole world to have his love in return. Throneless and penniless she would take him now, and give more to win him than an empire. And this was the man she had driven to suicide or madness—she knew not what. By her crime she had poisoned herself in his eyes, and her handmaid too; and he she loved so well had fled the world in despair. She knew him well, and understood it all. It was a torment almost past endurance, and yet day by day she must smile beneath it, and push her father's scheme to try and drive the memory from her head.
So she lay one afternoon upon her divan, little more than a week before the King's reign would come to an end, feeling, as the catastrophe drew near, there was nothing she would not do to repair the wrong of which she was guilty. She was awaiting the General's now daily visit, dressed voluptuously in one of those wonderful demi-toilettes, which drove the foolish old officer to the verge of distraction, and made him feel that one hour of her society, even at the tantalising distance she preserved, was compensation enough for all the little ease at home with which Madame Dolabella's jealousy made itself evident.
In due course he made his appearance; but it was not with the gallant air that usually distinguished him. He was evidently excited.
"Mademoiselle!" he cried, seating himself beside her without ceremony or greeting, and spreading out a paper. "See here. What shall I do? I must do something, and there is no one I may safely consult but yourself."
"My dear General," said Mlle de Tricotrin, "calm yourself, and tell me all about it."
"Calm myself!" said the General, sinking his voice to an agitated whisper. "How can I? The King is alive, and I know where he is!"
Mlle de Tricotrin started up, and, seizing the paper from the General's hand, began to read it eagerly. Her beautiful lips parted, and her breath came quick and fast, as her eye ran down the lines. It was a report addressed to the Minister of Public Worship by the Abbot of the Cañon Hermits, giving him official intimation of the arrival of two novices, and furnishing him with particulars of their personal appearance for purposes of preliminary registration.
"There is no doubt who the novices are," she said.
"Not the slightest," answered the General; and then stopped, as he saw the eyes he adored dim with tears. In a moment she understood it all, and knew that another had won the love for which she could never cease to hunger. It was a bitter morsel between her lips; yet the desire to repair the injury she had done, and regain a little of the good opinion she had forfeited, prevailed over all. She had lost him, she knew, and her only consolation was to make him regret her. Could she but find some means to release him from his enchantment it would be done. His eyes would be open, and he would see what a mistake he had made.