"M. le Comte ... I have suffered too much.... I find myself unable to continue our interview.... With your permission ... to-morrow?..." He bowed and took his hat and cane, and repeated weakly: "To-morrow?"
"With pleasure!" said the Man of Iron, escorting him to the door.
And the old, humiliated, fallen King-maker, the great literary genius, the polished orator—tottered away out of the presence of the conqueror.
He was to return upon the morrow, and for many days thenceafter, to be played with and tortured, to be tantalized and mocked.
He was to return flushed with futile hope, only to be crushed and retire discomfited. He was to furnish an inexhaustible source of amusement for the delectation of his implacable enemy.
He was to return after a prolonged absence within the walls of the beleaguered capital, he and others, faint with famine, broken by anxiety, shattered by suspense and sleeplessness, forced by sheer hunger to sit and partake at the groaning board of their merciless foe, compelled by his arrogance to listen to his jestings, moistening the food they placed between their livid lips, with the stinging salt of tears.
LXIX
The center of a small but lively group, composed of admirers and listeners, Prussian officers known in Berlin, their Bavarian and Hessian friends and acquaintances, American and English Press Correspondents, and a traveling Oriental or two—you might have observed Madame de Straz—a full-blown Comtesse now, in virtue of the patent of nobility asserted by her husband—in the restaurant of the Hôtel des Réservoirs—not always accompanied by her Assyrian-featured lord.
Adelaide had not grown younger since the adventure of the Silk Scarf. Her bold and striking beauty had suffered gravely, though her figure, set off by its fashionable and well-chosen dress, was as supple and graceful as of yore. She looked like some gorgeous fruit that the wasps had ravaged, and to conceal this she made up heavily and wore thicker veils. What she now lacked in loveliness she endeavored to make up in espièglerie and easy-going good-fellowship. Not a few officers responded with enthusiasm to her pressing invitations to breakfast or lunch at the little country villa she and M. de Straz had rented, at Maisons Lafitte beyond St. Germain.