In a
flash, with one single reflection, Armand de Montriveau wiped out
his whole past life.
A score of times he asked himself, like a boy, "Shall I go, or
shall I not?" and then at last he dressed, came to the Hotel de
Langeais towards eight o'clock that evening, and was admitted.
He was to see the woman--ah! not the woman--the idol that he had
seen yesterday, among lights, a fresh innocent girl in gauze and
silken lace and veiling. He burst in upon her to declare his
love, as if it were a question of firing the first shot on a
field of battle.
Poor novice! He found his ethereal sylphide shrouded in a brown
cashmere dressing-gown ingeniously befrilled, lying languidly
stretched out upon a sofa in a dimly lighted boudoir. Mme de
Langeais did not so much as rise, nothing was visible of her but
her face, her hair was loose but confined by a scarf. A hand
indicated a seat, a hand that seemed white as marble to
Montriveau by the flickering light of a single candle at the
further side of the room, and a voice as soft as the light said:
"If it had been anyone else, M. le Marquis, a friend with whom I
could dispense with ceremony, or a mere acquaintance in whom I
felt but slight interest, I should have closed my door. I am
exceedingly unwell."
"I will go," Armand said to himself.
"But I do not know how it is," she continued (and the simple
warrior attributed the shining of her eyes to fever), "perhaps
it was a presentiment of your kind visit (and no one can be more
sensible of the prompt attention than I), but the vapors have
left my head.
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