"I have my reasons for thinking so;" and the young woman in uttering these words was seized with a fit of sardonic laughter which came near convulsion, so shaken were her nerves by the terrible tension.
Camors, to whom little by little the light fell stronger on the more obscure points of the terrible enigma proposed to him, saw the necessity of shortening a scene which had overtasked her faculties to an almost insupportable degree. He rose:
"I am compelled to leave you," he said; "for I am not dining at home.
But I will come to-morrow, if you will permit me."
"Certainly. You authorize me to speak to the General?"
"Well, yes, for I really can see no reasonable objection."
"Very good. I adore you!" said the Marquise. She gave him her hand, which he kissed and immediately departed.
It would have required a much keener vision than that of M. de Campvallon to detect any break, or any discordance, in the audacious comedy which had just been played before him by these two great artists.
The mute play of their eyes alone could have betrayed them; and that he could not see.
As to their tranquil, easy, natural dialogue there was not in it a word which he could seize upon, and which did not remove all his disquietude, and confound all his suspicions. From this moment, and ever afterward, every shadow was effaced from his mind; for the ability to imagine such a plot as that in which his wife in her despair had sought refuge, or to comprehend such depth of perversity, was not in the General's pure and simple spirit.
When he reappeared before his wife, on leaving his concealment, he was constrained and awkward. With a gesture of confusion and humility he took her hand, and smiled upon her with all the goodness and tenderness of his soul beaming from his face.