CHAPTER XLVIII
“Urania, I beseech you, help me!”
“What is it?”
“Come with me....”
She had seized Urania by the hand and dragged her away from De Breuil into one of the deserted rooms. The suite of rooms was almost entirely deserted; the dense throng of guests stood packed along the sides of the great ball-room to watch the pavane.
“What is it, Cornélie?”
Cornélie was trembling in every limb and clutching Urania’s arm. She drew her to the farthest corner of the room. There was no one there.
“Urania,” she entreated, in a supreme crisis of nervousness, “help me! What am I to do? I have met him unexpectedly. Don’t you know whom I mean? My husband. My divorced husband. I had seen him once or twice before, in the street and on the Jetée. The time when I was so startled, you know, when I almost fainted: that was because of him. And he has been talking to me now, here, a moment ago. And I’m afraid of him. He spoke quite nicely, said he wanted to talk to me. It was so strange. Everything was finished between us. We were divorced. And suddenly I meet him and he speaks to me and asks me what sort of time I have had, tells me that I am looking well, that I have grown beautiful. Tell me, Urania, what I am to do. I’m frightened. I’m ill with anxiety. I want to get away. I should like best to go away at once, to Florence, to Duco. I am so frightened, Urania. I want to go to my room. Tell Mrs. Uxeley that I want to go to my room.”
She hardly knew what she was saying. The words fell incoherently from her lips, as in a fever. Men’s voices approached. They were those of Gilio, De Breuil, the Duke di Luca and the young journalists, the two who were pushing their way into society.
“What is the Signora de Retz doing?” asked the duke. “We are missing her everywhere.”