“Not so feeble either, Angélique!” replied he, laughing; “few men could plant a better blow: you hit me on the heart fairly, Angélique.”
He seized her hand and lifted it to his lips. Had Queen Dido possessed that hand she would have held fast Aeneas himself when he ran away from his engagements.
Angélique pressed the Intendant's hand with a grasp that left every vein bloodless. “As I hold fast to you, Bigot, and hold you to your engagements, thank God that you are not a woman! If you were, I think I should kill you. But as you are a man, I forgive, and take your promise of amendment. It is what foolish women always do!”
The sound of the music and the measured tread of feet in the lively dances were now plainly heard in the pauses of their conversation.
They rose, and entered the ballroom. The music ceased, and recommenced a new strain for the Intendant and his fair partner, and for a time Angélique forgot her wrath in the delirious excitement of the dance.
But in the dance her exuberance of spirits overflowed like a fountain of intoxicating wine. She cared not for things past or future in the ecstatic joy of the present.
Her voluptuous beauty, lissomeness, and grace of movement enthralled all eyes with admiration, as she danced with the Intendant, who was himself no mean votary of Terpsichore. A lock of her long golden hair broke loose and streamed in wanton disorder over her shoulders; but she heeded it not,—carried away by the spirit of the dance, and the triumph of present possession of the courtly Intendant. Her dainty feet flashed under her flying robe and scarcely seemed to touch the floor as they kept time to the swift throbbings of the music.
The Intendant gazed with rapture on his beautiful partner, as she leaned upon his arm in the pauses of the dance, and thought more than once that the world would be well lost for sake of such a woman. It was but a passing fancy, however; the serious mood passed away, and he was weary, long before Angélique, of the excitement and breathless heat of a wild Polish dance, recently first heard of in French society. He led her to a seat, and left her in the centre of a swarm of admirers, and passed into an alcove to cool and rest himself.