“Did you tell M. Vanderlin of Prince Khristof’s death?” she asked of Gaulois as he accompanied her downstairs after breakfast.
“Ah, mon Dieu, non!” exclaimed the minister. “Who speaks to any man of a divorced wife’s family?”
“I was wondering if he had any feeling at all for the poor old man,” she said with much pathos.
“I should think none; very pardonably,” replied the minister. “The poor old man drew an allowance of a thousand francs a month from Vanderlin and it all went in play.”
“But the poor prince had some conscience?”
“Had he indeed? He concealed it very carefully throughout a long life.”
“Ma belle Sourisette!” he thought, “what secret have you got hold of that you are going to try to sell to Vanderlin?”
He had been a lawyer, he was now a statesman; despite his loquacity he was very discreet; he told no one that he had met her at the great banking-house in the Rue de Rivoli.
By the time breakfast was over it was nearly three o’clock, and when she returned to her hotel she gave an hour to her toilette. She was conscious that she looked what Parisians call défaite. She was nervous and undecided, and she dreaded the visit of Vanderlin whilst she desired it. It was only a little after three when she went into her salon which looked on the Rue Rouget de Lisle; and sat down to wait for him vainly trying to read the morning journals.
She always dressed in accordance with the character she assumed, and she wore a rather sombre loose gown of grey velvet trimmed with chincilla and old Mechlin lace, a kind of gown that Vittoria Colonna or Blanche of Castille might have worn. Her own personality only revealed itself in the diamond arrow run through the coils of her hair and the little bouquet of heliotrope at her throat. She was melancholy but she was preëminently seductive.