And yet it gave the Duchess inexpressible
happiness to see that this strong man had told her the truth.
Armand had never loved, as he had said. He was about to go, in a
bad humour with himself, and still more out of humour with her;
but it delighted her to see a sullenness that she could conjure
away with a word, a glance, or a gesture.
"Will you come tomorrow evening?" she asked. "I am going to a
ball, but I shall stay at home for you until ten o'clock."
Montriveau spent most of the next day in smoking an indeterminate
quantity of cigars in his study window, and so got through the
hours till he could dress and go to the Hotel de Langeais. To
anyone who had known the magnificent worth of the man, it would
have been grievous to see him grown so small, so distrustful of
himself; the mind that might have shed light over undiscovered
worlds shrunk to the proportions of a she-coxcomb's boudoir.
Even he himself felt that he had fallen so low already in his
happiness that to save his life he could not have told his love
to one of his closest friends. Is there not always a trace of
shame in the lover's bashfulness, and perhaps in woman a certain
exultation over diminished masculine stature? Indeed, but for a
host of motives of this kind, how explain why women are nearly
always the first to betray the secret?--a secret of which,
perhaps, they soon weary.
"Mme la Duchesse cannot see visitors, monsieur," said the man;
"she is dressing, she begs you to wait for her here.
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