Madame Egmont held out her arms.
“I can’t kiss you,” she said, “because I know my husband has kissed you, but you may kiss my child.”
The two women looking into each other’s eyes understood perfectly; Madame Egmont, in giving Diane permission to press her fresh, red lips to the cheek of the little snowdrop of a child, was being accorded the greatest honor that one woman may accord another.
“I thank you,” said Diane, “from the bottom of my heart,” as she kneeled by the sofa and took the child in her arms and kissed her.
It was five o’clock, and the fog was increasing every moment, but something stronger than herself drove Diane at full speed toward the maze in the dusky park. She did not want to face the Grandins and François and Jean, and especially Mademoiselle Rose, until she was obliged to do so.
At supper, which was at six o’clock, the party missed Diane. As it was the first night of Mademoiselle Rose’s appearance, they were all rather hurried, and made no search for Diane, expecting her to appear at every moment. Just as they were about to rise from the table, Diane walked in. Her face was flushed, her eyes brilliant. She had to make a terrible confession, but, with the undying instinct of an actress, she meant to do it in the most dramatic manner possible.
“Listen, all of you,” she said; “the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel is a scoundrel, a criminal. He has already a wife and child that are now in this house. Just wait until to-morrow morning when he comes to take me to the village that we may be married—Ha, ha!”
Her laugh, studied and rippling like an actress’s, made Jean’s blood run cold.
“Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies,” she added. No one spoke, except Madame Grandin, who, after a gasp, said that it was well Diane had found it out in time.
Mademoiselle Rose looked a trifle uneasy. She thought that Diane might want her old place back again. Diane knew this by clairvoyance.