"How cruel! Do you suppose I can have no émotions except I learn them second-hand through Lamartine or Delphine Gay? You are very satirical, Miss Gordon——How strange!" said the baronne, interrupting herself; "your bouquet is the fac-simile of mine! Look! De Kerroualle sent you that I fancy? You know he raffoles of you. I was very silly to use mine, but Mr. Vaughan sent me such a pretty note with it, that I had not the resolution to disappoint him. Poor Ernest!" And Madame sighed softly, as if bewailing in her tender heart the woes her obduracy caused. The blood flamed up in Nina's cheeks, and her hand clenched hard on Ernest's flowers: they were the fac-similes of the widow's; delicate pink blossoms, mixed with white azalias. "Is he here to-night, do you know?" madame continued. "I dare say not; he is behind the coulisses, most likely. Céline, the new danseuse from the Fenice, makes her début to-night. Here comes poor Gaston to petition for a valse. Be kind to him, pray."
She herself went off to the ball-room, and the effect of her exordium was to make Nina very disagreeable to poor De Kerroualle, whom she really liked, and who was entêté about her. Not long afterwards, Nina saw in the distance Vaughan's haughty head and powerful brow, and her silly little heart beat as quick as a pigeon's just caught in the trap: he was talking to the widow.
"Look at our young English friend," Pauline was saying, "how she is flirting with Gaston, and De Lafitolle, and De Concressault. Certainly, when your Englishwomen do coquet, they go further than any of us."
"Est-ce possible?" said Ernest, raising his eyebrows.
"Méchant!" cried madame, with a chastising blow of her fan. "But, do you know, I admire the petite very much. I believe all really beautiful women had that rare golden hair of hers—Lucrezia Borgia (I could never bear Grisi as Lucrezia, for that very reason). La Cenci, the Duchess of Portsmouth, Ænone—and Helen, I am sure, netted Paris with those gold threads. Don't you think it is very lovely?"
"I do, indeed," said Vaughan, with unconscious warmth.
Madame laughed gaily, but there was a disagreeable glitter in her eye. "What, fickle already? Ah well, I give you full leave."
"And example, madame," said Ernest, as he bowed and left her side, glad to have struck the first blow of his freedom from this handsome tyrant, who was as capricious and exacting as she was clever and captivating. But fetters made of fairer roses were over Ernest now, and he never bethought himself of the probable vengeance of that bitterest foe, a woman who is piqued.
"Tout beau!" thought Pauline, as she saw him waltzing with Nina. "Mais je vous donnerai encore l'échec et mat, mon brave joueur."
"Did you give Madame de Mélusine the bouquet she carries this evening?" asked Nina, as he whirled her round.