She throws herself back among her vivid scarlet cushions, and makes a gesture to him to sit down beside her.
Then, for the first time, he grows conscious of the presence of a third person, an old woman, hideous as Hecuba, who has seated herself close to the portière.
“That’s the sheep-dog Shropshire spoke of,” he thinks.
“Madame Perchard, you can go for a walk if you like. It is a charming day, and it will do you good. Stay! you might call at the costumier’s, and desire them to send the domino and mask for the Bal de l’Opera to-morrow.”
Madame Perchard, who looks as if she were well paid and well fed, smiles feebly and goes on her way, and the others are left tête-à-tête.
If anyone had suggested two months ago that he would be seated in a dimly-lit room, side by side with a music-hall singer, Lord Delaval would probably have scouted the notion, and resented the speaker’s impertinence; but now it seems to him as if it is the most natural thing in the world that he should be here, at Marguerite Ange’s feet (mentally).
He turns, and looks into her beautiful eyes long and steadfastly, without speaking, until she, who has grown hardened to the boldest stare, reddens a little.
“Eh bien?” she says smiling, and her voice startles him out of a reverie. He is not only thinking how exquisitely lovely she is, but taxing his brain once more to find out who she resembles.
“I was dreaming, I believe, Mademoiselle Ange! Will you forgive me for coming here like this? My only excuse is that my heart was stronger than myself,” he says, in a low, passionate voice.
“I forgive you!” she answers. “Ah! you don’t know what I felt the other night when I first saw you. You are very like someone I once knew—someone I loved as women only love once in their lives!—someone who is dead to me, and when I saw you I fainted.”