CHAPTER XXXVIII. A WILD NIGHT INDOORS AND OUT.
The Chevalier de Pean had been but too successful in his errand of mischief to the Manor House of Tilly.
A few days had sufficed for this accomplished ambassador of Bigot to tempt Le Gardeur to his ruin, and to triumph in his fall.
Upon his arrival at the Seigniory, De Pean had chosen to take up his quarters at the village inn, in preference to accepting the proffered hospitality of the Lady de Tilly, whom, however, he had frequently to see, having been craftily commissioned by Bigot with the settlement of some important matters of business relating to her Seigniory, as a pretext to visit the Manor House and linger in the village long enough to renew his old familiarity with Le Gardeur.
The visits of De Pean to the Manor House were politely but not cordially received. It was only by reason of the business he came upon that he was received at all. Nevertheless he paid his court to the ladies of the Manor, as a gentleman anxious to remove their prejudices and win their good opinion.
He once, and but once, essayed to approach Amélie with gallantry, a hair-breadth only beyond the rigid boundary-line of ordinary politeness, when he received a repulse so quick, so unspoken and invisible, that he could not tell in what it consisted, yet he felt it like a sudden paralysis of his powers of pleasing. He cared not again to encounter the quick glance of contempt and aversion which for an instant flashed in the eyes of Amélie when she caught the drift of his untimely admiration.
A woman is never so Rhadamanthean in her justice, and so quick in her execution of it, as when she is proud and happy in her love for another man: she is then indignant at every suggestion implying any doubt of the strength, purity, and absoluteness of her devotion.
De Pean ground his teeth in silent wrath at this quiet but unequivocal repulse, and vowed a bitter vow that Amélie should ere long repent in sackcloth and ashes for the wound inflicted upon his vanity and still more upon his cupidity.
One of the day-dreams of his fancy was broken, never to return. The immense fortune and high rank of the young Chatelaine de Repentigny had excited the cupidity of De Pean for some time, and although the voluptuous beauty of Angélique fastened his eyes, he would willingly have sacrificed her for the reversion of the lordships of Tilly and Repentigny.