She had scented danger afar off from that visit. She knew that Héloise worshipped Le Gardeur, and now that Angélique had cast him off, what more natural than that he should fall at last into her snares—so Angélique scornfully termed the beauty and amiable character of her rival. She was angry without reason, and she knew it; but that made her still more angry, and with still less reason.
“Bigot!” said she, impetuously, as the Intendant rejoined her when the half-hour had elapsed, “you asked me a question in the Castle of St. Louis, leaning on the high gallery which overlooks the cliffs! Do you remember it?”
“I do: one does not forget easily what one asks of a beautiful woman, and still less the reply she makes to us,” replied he, looking at her sharply, for he guessed her drift.
“Yet you seem to have forgotten both the question and the reply, Bigot. Shall I repeat them?” said she, with an air of affected languor.
“Needless, Angélique! and to prove to you the strength of my memory, which is but another name for the strength of my admiration, I will repeat it: I asked you that night—it was a glorious night, the bright moon shone full in our faces as we looked over the shining river, but your eyes eclipsed all the splendor of the heavens—I asked you to give me your love; I asked for it then, Angélique! I ask for it now.”
Angélique was pleased with the flattery, even while she knew how hollow and conventional a thing it was.
“You said all that before, Bigot!” replied she, “and you added a foolish speech, which I confess pleased me that night better than now. You said that in me you had found the fair haven of your desires, where your bark, long tossing in cross seas, and beating against adverse winds, would cast anchor and be at rest. The phrase sounded poetical if enigmatical, but it pleased me somehow; what did it mean, Bigot? I have puzzled over it many times since—pray tell me!”
Angélique turned her eyes like two blazing stars full upon him as if to search for every trace of hidden thought that lurked in his countenance.
“I meant what I said, Angélique: that in you I had found the pearl of price which I would rather call mine than wear a king's crown.”
“You explain one enigma by another. The pearl of price lay there before you and you picked it up! It had been the pride of its former owner, but you found it ere it was lost. What did you with it, Bigot?”