She fell back sobbing with exquisite abandon. No deserted Calypso's pose was ever more effective.
"Ernest, Ernest! that I should live to be so insulted, and by you!"
"Nay, madame, end this vaudeville," said he bitterly. "I know well enough that you hate me, or why have you troubled yourself to coin the untruths about me that you whispered to Miss Gordon?"
"Ah! have you no pity for the first mad vengeance dictated by jealousy and despair?" murmured Pauline. "Once there was attraction in this face for you, Ernest; have some compassion, some sympathy——"
Well as he knew the worth of madame's tears, Ernest, chivalric and generous at heart, was touched.
"Forgive me," he said, gently, "and let us part. You know now, Pauline, that she has my deepest, my latest love. It were disloyalty to both did we meet again save in society."
"Farewell, then," murmured Pauline. "Think gently of me, Ernest, for I have loved you more than you will ever know now."
She rose, and, as he bent towards her, kissed his forehead. Then, floating from the room, passed the Reverend Eusebius, standing in the doorway, looking in on this parting scene. The widow looked at herself in her mirror that night with a smile of satisfaction.
"C'est bien en train," she said, half aloud. "Le fou! de penser qu'il puisse me braver. Je ne l'aime plus, c'est vrai, mais je ne veux pas qu'elle réussisse."
Nina went to bed very happy. Ernest had sat next her at the déjeûner; and afterwards at a ball had waltzed often with her and with nobody else; and his eyes had talked love in the waltzes though his tongue never had.