When the rout was at its height, and the floor of the dancing saloon crowded, I had occasion to pass through the great suite of rooms, which were nearly deserted for 419 the ball room. There was a little curtained alcove, in which either the lights had been forgotten or had been put out, and from that place, dark and still, although the wild racket of the ball was going on in the same building, I heard Francezka’s voice calling me. I went in and found her sitting on a sofa.
“I am so very tired,” she said. “I came here for a moment’s rest, not thinking I should be fortunate enough to have a word with my Babache.”
I sat down by her and told her the story of my beating Jacques Haret. I could not see her face in the darkness, but she clapped her hands joyously.
“I am afraid I want vengeance to be mine instead of the Lord’s,” she cried with her old spirit. “I am like my Aunt Peggy in that. Thank you for every blow you gave Jacques Haret. I shall tell Peter, but not poor Lisa. That girl has the nature of a spaniel. I believe she reproaches herself for having thrown in his face the silver snuff-box Jacques Haret gave her.”
I knew that Francezka and Gaston had been invited to visit Chambord in the spring, and I expressed a wish that they might come.
“No,” replied Francezka, relapsing into the weary tone she had first used. “We have declined the invitation. I am so tired of balls and hunting parties and ballets, and everything in the world, that I feel sometimes as if I wished to be a hermit.”
I listened in sorrow, but hardly in surprise. It is as true as the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid that to give a human being all he or she wants of anything is to cure all liking for it. Francezka’s natural taste, however, was so strongly in favor of gaiety and splendor, 420 and she had tasted so little of it, that I thought satiety would spare her longer than most. There was a pause, after which I said:
“You will be missed at Chambord, but Capello is so sweet in the spring and summer.”
“Yes,” answered Francezka, “but even there I shall not be able to escape people. Do you remember how they flocked there when Gaston came home? And I verily believe half Paris means to follow us to Capello. Gaston has invited many persons to visit us.”
“Against your wish Madame?” I asked in surprise.