“I feared so much you were not coming, but you have come! Will you take me in?”
He offers her his arm and at this moment catches sight of De Belcour, who is looking at him with ill-concealed jealousy and vexation. He has met this man before, a year or two ago, and nods recognition, then, turning towards his companion, forgets his existence.
The portière is drawn aside, and they enter the supper-room. On the table are antique silver tripods holding rare hothouse flowers and richest fruit, vases of exquisite camellias of every colour are interspersed between, and the whole are lit up by the soft light of waxen tapers. The supper itself is one of those which has made Monsieur Hector a king of chefs. Meats have lost their identity in the elaboration of the flavouring, cunning dishes are ingeniously devised to give zest to appetites already satiated. Rhenish of the rarest bouquet and Comet claret, tribute from the cellar of a youthful Duc, contribute to the hilarious enjoyment of the company.
The talk is animated, bright sallies and sharp repartee and racy anecdotes succeed one another, and amidst it all, pleasant as it is, Lord Delaval’s conscience rather smites him for being where he is, while De Belcour waxes momentarily more wrathful at Mademoiselle Ange’s evident partiality for the comparative stranger—“ce milord Anglais!”
“Are these to-night’s spoils, Mademoiselle,” asks Ivan Scoboloff, taking a lovely red camellia bud from its vase and quietly putting it into his button-hole. “I believe all the conservatories are pillaged for your especial benefit, and you’ll turn Paris into a wilderness.”
“I am afraid my reign will last too short a while for that!” Marguerite laughs, but in a tone rather tinged with regret, as she carelessly plucks an exquisite Sofrano rose to pieces, that lies by her plate. “I am only the rage of an hour, the fashion of a season, you know!”
“If you did lay Paris waste, what matter?” asks De Belcour, “and while a laurel grows, you should have its tribute, for are you not the Queen of—Hearts?”
“I hate laurels, they are so gloomy, and I love flowers! though they are not so lasting! still I prefer them, and as for tributes, of course the praises of the public are for the singer and not for the woman! and I like it so. I love to be applauded when I sing. It is life and soul to me, but as for individual tributes, I don’t want them. I wonder why people pester me with baubles and with billets doux. Heaven knows I would rather be without them!” She speaks contemptuously, her eyes are scornful, and it is easy to see that she is absolutely in earnest.
“How inscrutable is woman!” Delaval remarks, with a little of his old cynicism; “she despises the admiration she does all her best to inspire, and repudiates the passion she has taken an immense trouble to create!”
“Inscrutable you call us?” Marguerite answers, her face sparkling with animation. “And yet you affect to read us so easily! We are not inscrutable, I think, but we are inconsistent perhaps—cold and passionate, selfish and self-denying, tender and heartless, kind and cold, a mixture of the serpent and the dove; gentle as a faithful hound when we love, fierce and relentless as the hawk to the quarry when we hate, or have cause for revenge!”