Eugénie's fancy pursued him. She thought of the night of the 20th of January, 1793, when Madame Royale, in the darkness of the Temple, heard her mother turning miserably on her bed, sleepless with grief and cold, waiting for that last rendezvous of seven o'clock which the King had promised her—waiting—waiting—till the great bell of Notre Dame told her that Louis had passed to another meeting, more urgent, more peremptory still.
'Oh, poor soul!—poor soul!' she said, aloud, pressing her hands on her eyes.
'What on earth do you mean!' said Mrs. Welby's voice beside her—startled—stiff—a little suspicious.
Eugénie looked up and blushed.
'I beg your pardon!—I was thinking of Marie Antoinette.'
'I'm so tired of Marie Antoinette!' said the invalid, raising a petulant hand, and letting it fall again, inert. 'All the silly memorials of her they sell here!—and the sentimental talk about her! Arthur, of course, now—with his picture—thinks of nothing else.'
'Naturally!'
'I don't know. People are bored with Marie Antoinette. I wish he'd taken another subject. And as to her beauty—how could she have been beautiful, with those staring eyes, and that lower lip! I say so to Arthur—and he raves—and quotes Horace Walpole—and all sorts of people. But one can see for one's self. People are much prettier now than they ever were then! We should think nothing of their beauties.'
And the delicate lips of this once lovely child, this flower withered before its time, made a cold gesture of contempt.
In Eugénie's eyes, as they rested upon her companion, there was a flash—was it of horror?