The words fell upon Dunoisse with the cold, heavy shock of a douche of salt water, literally taking away his breath. Could it be? Had she left home upon the eve of Monseigneur’s masterstroke? Was it possible that a night, and a day, and yet another night, had passed, and found her still absent? He told himself, poor wretch, all conscious of his self-deceit, that there had been some mistake ... that one of the little girls at Bagnéres must have been taken ill ... that the mother had been sent for.... Knowing in his soul that the Henriettes never risk their beauty in the neighborhood of possible infection, he pretended to believe this lie.
He turned from the servant, and went through the empty, close-blinded reception-rooms, stumbling at the pattern of garlands on the carpet as though they had been thorny ropes set to trip him up. And he went into the gray boudoir where he had fallen captive to that luring beauty, and the stately portrait of the beautiful wicked Abbess, daughter of the evil Regent, seemed to smile at him in jeering triumph from its station on the wall.
He drew up a blind, and there were the familiar gardens bathing in the clear, cold December sunshine. He threw up a sash, letting in fresh air, and the smell of thawing earth, and the chaste, pungent fragrance of the chrysanthemums. As he leaned against the carved and painted shutter the Abbaye clock struck eight, and all the other clocks in Paris responded, one after the other, and then—his heart leaped, for there came the opening and shutting of the hall-door, and the sound of silken draperies sweeping over velvet carpets. A light footstep crossed the threshold.... He wheeled, and was face to face with Henriette....
She was in all the splendor of full dinner-dress, and her lovely person blazed and scintillated with magnificent jewels. Many of the costly gems she wore had been given her by Dunoisse, but others, costlier still, were new to him.... Her rich black hair hung in dishevelled curls—the pitiless sunlight showed her beautiful eyes deep sunk in violet caves of weariness. The berthe of costly lace that edged her corsage was torn, revealing charms that even Fashion decrees should be hidden.... There was a fierce red mark upon her rounded throat, and another on one white breast....
The picture was burned in upon the brain of the man who saw, as a corrosive acid might have bitten it on copper. He opened his dry mouth to speak, but no words issued thence. She said, dropping her sable-lined mantle upon the floor, dragging at one of her bracelets that obstinately refused to be unfastened:
“So—you have returned!... Then you have not been to the Rue du Bac?”
“I went,” he said, showing her the little treacherous sheet—“and found your letter there....”
A rush of angry blood changed her from white to crimson. The mark on her throat vanished, and then, as the fierce tide receded, stood out once more in burning, guilty red. She tore off the bracelet, and tossed it down, and said, lifting her white arms to release her little head from the weight of the diamond coronet:
“The Prince-President sent!... It was a command. How could I disobey?”