She swept her little hands upwards through the mass of curls upon her temples, with her favorite gesture:
“I was leaving the Hotel—where my husband was dining with M. Guizot—when the great crowd of people, led by the drum and the Red Flag, filled the Boulevard, and seemed as though about to charge the soldiers, who were drawn up along the railings motionless as statues, with their muskets at the present.... Upon a gray Arab, in command of the half-battalion was a young officer who interested me much....”
Invisible, red-hot needles pricked the listener all over. Then something icy cold seemed to trickle down his spine and escape through the heels of his spurred military boots. The speaker did not look in his direction. Her downcast eyelids fluttered, a faint mysterious smile hovered upon the eloquent mouth.
“He sat his horse like a young Bedouin of the Desert, or such a warrior of ancient Greece as one has seen sculptured on the walls of the Parthenon at Athens. His skin was the ground-color of an Etruscan vase.... Cold though I am—ah! you cannot dream how cold I am!—I have never been insensible to the beauty that is male.”
Under the covert of her eyelashes she stole a glance at the victim.
“I guessed who you were, of course!—you had been minutely described to me.... But it pleased me to pretend ignorance. I said, pointing you out to M. de Moulny: ‘That must be the officer who has newly joined us from Africa. His type is rare—at least in my experience. It is a reincarnation of the Young Hannibal. He has the rich coloring, the bold features, the slender shape.... De Roux must present him. He will bring me purple stuffs and golden ingots and the latest news from Tyre.’ And de Moulny answered, looking at you coldly: ‘He has millions of ingots, but he cannot give you them—unless he cares to break a vow.’ I said: ‘So, then, you know my handsome Carthaginian?’ He answered: ‘I used to, when we were boys at a military institute. It was he who induced me to give up my intention of entering the Army.’ I asked: ‘How, then, Monsieur?... Are you so easily persuaded? What means did your friend employ to alter your determination?’ And de Moulny answered, looking at me oddly: ‘A false step, and a broken foil!’”
The spider-web of fascination she had woven about Dunoisse was weakened, perhaps, by the mention of de Moulny’s name. He looked at Henriette with eyes that had become harder and brighter. He waited for the rest.
“Naturally, so strange an utterance roused my curiosity. I wanted to hear the story, if there is one? But M. de Moulny stuck out his underlip—perhaps you remember a trick he has;—and I thought: ‘Some day you shall tell me the rest.’ We talked of other things—standing there under the portico. Of ourselves, France, the political crisis that loaded the air with the stifling smell of garlic, of old clothes, of unwashed human beings—that filled it with those cries of, ‘Down with the Ministry! Long live Reform! Give us no more thieves in velvet!’ and drowned them in the bellowed strophes of ‘The Marseillaise.’ And as the crowd surged and roared and the Red Flag waved like a bloody rag in the light of their torches, I asked of M. de Moulny—I cannot tell you why I asked it.... Perhaps one is fated to say these things....”
Real emotion was beginning to mingle with feigned feeling. She lifted the chain of rubies that encircled her round white throat as though its light weight oppressed, and tiny points of moisture glittered on her temples and about her lips. She said, touching the lips with a filmy handkerchief edged with heavy Spanish lace: