"No, no, Madame," Louis answered, striving to soothe her. "Doubtless he will be here by-and-by."
But a shadow of anxiety still clouded Madame's face. "And Victor?" she said. "He has not come either? Louis, are you sure that there is nothing the matter?"
"Madame, Madame, you will see him presently," he answered with a half-stifled sob; and he turned away with a gesture of horror, which, but for one of the curtains of the alcove, she must have seen.
She did not, though there was enough in this to arouse a sane person's suspicions. As he spoke, however, Madame's eyes fell on me, and the piteous anxiety which had for the moment darkened her face, passed away as quickly as the shadow of a cloud passes on an April morning. She took up her fan again, and looked at me gaily. "Do you know," she said, "I had the strangest dream last night, M. le Vicomte--or was it when I was ill, Denise? Never mind. But I dreamed all sorts of horrors; that our house here was burned, and the house at Cahors, and that we had to fly and take refuge at Montauban, and then--I think it was at Nîmes. And that M. de Gontaut was murdered, and all the canaille were up in arms! As if--as if," she continued, with a little laugh, cut short by a gasp of pain, "the King would permit such things, or they were possible. And there was something--something still more absurd about the Church." She paused, knitting her brows; and then with a touch of her fan dismissing the subject: "But I forget--I forget. And just when it was most horrible I awoke. It was all absurd. So extravagant you would all be ill with laughing if I could remember it. I fancied that a pair of red-heeled shoes were as good as a death warrant, and powder and patches condemned you at once."
She paused. The fan dropped from her hand, and she looked round uneasily. "I think--I think I am not quite well yet," she said in a different tone, and a spasm crossed her face--it was plain that she was in pain. "Louis!" she continued petulantly, "where is the notary? He might read the contract. Doubtless Victor and M. de Gontaut will be here before long. Where is he?" she continued sharply.
It is easy to say that we might have played our parts; but the pity and the horror of it, falling on hearts already tortured by the scenes of the day, fairly unmanned us. Denise hid her face, and trembled so that the chair on which she sat shook; and Louis turned away shuddering, while I stood near the foot of the bed, frozen into silence. This time it was the surgeon, a thin young man of dark complexion, who put himself forward.
"The papers are in the next room, Madame," he said gravely.
"But you are not M. Pettifer?" she answered querulously.
"No, Madame, he was so unwell as to be unable to leave the house."
"He has no right to be unwell," Madame retorted severely. "Pettifer unwell, and Mademoiselle St. Alais' contract to be signed! But you have the papers?"