“That if you will not issue a lettre de cachet, you shall place the lady of Beaumanoir in the hands of the Mère de la Nativité with instructions to receive her into the community after the shortest probation.”
“Very good, Angélique! But if I do not know the Mère Superior, you do not know the lady of Beaumanoir. There are reasons why the nuns would not and could not receive her at all,—even were she willing to go, as I think she would be. But I will provide her a home suited to her station in the city; only you must promise to speak to me no more respecting her.”
“I will promise no such thing, Bigot!” said Angélique, firing up again at the failure of her crafty plan for the disposal of Caroline, “to have her in the city will be worse than to have her at Beaumanoir.”
“Are you afraid of the poor girl, Angélique,—you, with your surpassing beauty, grace, and power over all who approach you? She cannot touch you.”
“She has touched me, and to the quick too, already,” she replied, coloring with passion. “You love that girl, François Bigot! I am never deceived in men. You love her too well to give her up, and still you make love to me. What am I to think?”
“Think that you women are able to upset any man's reason, and make fools of us all to your own purposes.” Bigot saw the uselessness of argument; but she would not drop the topic.
“So you say, and so I have found it with others,” replied she, “but not with you, Bigot. But I shall have been made the fool of, unless I carry my point in regard to this lady.”
“Well, trust to me, Angélique. Hark you! there are reasons of State connected with her. Her father has powerful friends at Court, and I must act warily. Give me your hand; we will be friends. I will carry out your wishes to the farthest possible stretch of my power. I can say no more.”
Angélique gave him her hand. She saw she could not carry her point with the Intendant, and her fertile brain was now scheming another way to accomplish her ends. She had already undergone a revulsion of feeling, and repented having carried her resentment so far,—not that she felt it less, but she was cunning and artful, although her temper sometimes overturned her craft, and made wreck of her schemes.
“I am sorry I was so angry, Bigot, as to strike you with this feeble hand.” Angélique smiled as she extended her dainty fingers, which, delicate as they were, had the strength and elasticity of steel.