To shed real tears and be lovely still—what a gift of the fairies! They have it as a birthright, the Henriettes. My Aunt Julietta, crying her poor eyes out in the shadow of a four-post mahogany bedstead of British manufacture, with cabbage-rose-patterned chintz curtains, over a masculine profile discovered in the background of a colored fashion-plate in the month’s issue of The Lady’s Mentor, and supposed to bear a soul-rending resemblance to one who was to be for ever nameless, inspirer of an early love that had bloomed in a railway carriage, and shed its leaves as the train snorted its way out of Dullingstoke Junction—was not a pretty or pathetic spectacle. With her tip-tilted nose thickened by the false catarrh of tears—her slender frame convulsed with the recurrent hiccough of hysteria—what masculine eye would have lingered upon my aunt?
But Henriette and her sisters can ride on the whirlwind of the emotions, without disarranging a fold of their draperies,—go through whole tragedies of despair without reddening an eyelid,—sorrow beautifully without spoiling the romance of a situation with one grotesque blast upon the nose. This Henriette said, lifting a sweet quivering face and drowned eyes to Dunoisse’s agitated countenance:
“Oh! let me cry,—it eases the heart!—and listen, for you must believe me!...”
Voices sounded beyond the threshold, the door-handle was rattled loudly. As the door opened, Henriette turned with a rapid, supple movement, and said, indicating the portrait above the fireplace with a steady hand:
“As you remark, Monsieur, Madame d’Orléans did not pass her time in saying Paternosters.... But it is said that she repented, and died in a state of grace.”
She added:
“Perhaps she bewitched the priest who confessed her into granting absolution?... But no!... One cannot be irresistible on one’s dying bed.... And Death is frightful.... I have always dreaded it!... Could you kiss lips that are turning into clay?... For me, I should never muster courage!...” A real shudder went through her. She said, as though to herself: “Oh, no, no, no! However much I had loved him, I could not touch him then!”
XXXVI
The door shut softly. Those who had sought privacy in the gray boudoir had retreated discouraged. No more intruders came near as the ball went on. Pale faces had become burning crimson, flushed faces had darkened to purple. A fog of powder, shaken from the faces and bosoms of women, hung in the scorching, suffocating atmosphere, and made haloes round the wax-lights dwindling in gilt wall-sconces and chandeliers. Yawning servants renewed the candles as they were burned out. Not one remembered those in the gray boudoir. And while they flickered low in their silver branches, Henriette said to Dunoisse: