“I sha’n’t expect to be noticed by you after you are a marquise,” he said. “My family is not as ancient as that of the Egmont de St. Angel, although we are related, and my ancestors fought with Philippe le Bel. But the Marquis’ family were ennobled before mine, and as for you—good God! we are all parvenus when compared with the D’Orian family, going back to Romulus and Remus.”
This made Diane laugh a little, but it did not loosen the clutch of something like the hand of fate upon her heart, and she frankly burst out crying when François added:
“Nobody will ever dare to call you Skinny again.”
Diane, when she wiped the grease paint off that night, washed her face with her tears.
Madame Grandin suggested that she leave her make-up and little mirror for Mademoiselle Rose, as they represented several francs, but Diane would neither give them nor sell them to her successor, and jealously carried every scrap of her belongings back to her lodging.
All night she lay in her little white bed staring at the winter sky through the window, and at a mocking, grinning moon that obstinately refused to leave the sky until day was breaking, a pallid, wet, and dreary day. As soon as it was light, Diane slipped out of bed and went to the chest of drawers and took a look at the wedding veil and wreath. It seemed to her as if she had spent a night of agony, and that the sight of that veil and the memory of Egmont’s kisses were all that could solace the strange passion of regret that possessed her.
Diane contrived to busy herself the whole morning through. It did not take her long to pack up her small wardrobe, but she could not persuade herself to sit down in splendid idleness like a true marquise, but went to work in the kitchen, cleaning out presses and boxes, anything, in short, to keep her at work. Even that was the last time she would have the privilege of cleaning up a kitchen.
The Grandins were very much taken up with Mademoiselle Rose at the music hall, and Jean and François were assisting in rehearsing the newcomer.
At the midday dinner Mademoiselle Rose was present, and received, so Diane thought in the bitterness of her heart, entirely too much attention. In the midst of the dinner a magnificent bouquet for Diane arrived from the Marquis with a letter sealed with a crest. It seemed to Diane during that meal that the storm of conflicting emotions reached its height; she felt herself to be the most triumphant and the most humiliated of women, the most reluctant and the most eager of brides, wretched beyond words, elated beyond expression, miserable, happy, and utterly bewildered.
In the afternoon a fog came up, cold and white, and Diane was thinking of once more going to the park and seeking in the maze of clipped cedars the spot where she had known a tumult of joy. As she stood looking out of the window of her little room, an omnibus passed and stopped. From it descended a lady and a little girl who came straight to the door and pulled the bell. Steps were heard ascending the stairs, and a knock came at Diane’s door. When she opened it, the lady—for she was unmistakably that, in spite of the shabbiness of her attire—walked in unceremoniously, holding by the hand the little girl, and, turning, locked and bolted the door behind her. Then, throwing back her veil, she said in a smooth and composed voice: