She was radiant now with triumph—she sparkled like a starry night in midwinter. She drew deep breaths as though she had been running, and lovely tremulous smiles hovered about her mouth. She lifted her little hands as the first bars of a waltz marvelously played upon a brilliant instrument, rang out, and the rhythmical sound of dancing feet began to mingle with the music and the gay din of chattering tongues, and said with a sign that bade him listen:
“Do you hear?—they are dancing over the grave of the Monarchy. They have turned my reception into a ball. What the Augustinian Sisters will say to me I cannot imagine!... The outer gate closes at eleven.... They may go on like this until day.... M. Chopin has volunteered to play for them.... He is mad, like everybody else to-night. Decidedly it is as well you came here without waiting.” She added, a little incoherently: “What times we live in!—what events may not happen now! Oh! that waltz, how it distracts me! How can he dare to play like that?”
She pressed her small white hands against her temples, lifting from them the weight of hair, and sank down, panting a little still, upon the gray velvet divan, saying:
“Ouf!—my head aches. What was it I wanted to say?—I have forgotten! Do sit down! Here, beside me—you will not crush my dress.... We are not likely to be disturbed.... M. de Roux has gone to the Hôtel du Rhin with General Montguichet and a dozen other gentlemen—the rest are engrossed with their partners. What I wished to say to you was—Take this advice as from an elder sister. When you are summoned to answer before the Court-Martial for that—affair of the Rue des Capucines——”
He had fixed his eyes on the beautiful mobile mouth. Was he deceived? Did he really hear it say:
“Say that you gave the order for the men to fire. It will be the wisest course. Oh!—I know what I am talking about! No harm will come to you! You understand me, do you not? Only admit it—do not deny!”
Dunoisse rose up from the divan as pale under his red skin as when Hugo had asked him to point out the modern parallel of the primal murderer, and said in ice-cold tones:
“I have already had the honor to point out to you, Madame, that I did not give the order!”
He vibrated with passionate resentment. What—under the guise of sisterly kindness, was he advised to leap the cliff?
But a face brimming with sweet penitence was lifted to his. She said, summoning her dimples to play by mere force of will, bidding her eyes gleam through a soft veil of dewiness: