How
long he stood there motionless he himself never knew. The soul
within has the mysterious power of expanding as of contracting
space.
He opened the door of the boudoir. It was dark within. A faint
voice was raised to say sharply:
"I did not ring. What made you come in without orders? Go
away, Suzette."
"Then you are ill," exclaimed Montriveau.
"Stand up, monsieur, and go out of the room for a minute at any
rate," she said, ringing the bell.
"Mme la Duchesse rang for lights?" said the footman, coming in
with the candles. When the lovers were alone together, Mme de
Langeais still lay on her couch; she was just as silent and
motionless as if Montriveau had not been there.
"Dear, I was wrong," he began, a note of pain and a sublime
kindness in his voice. "Indeed, I would not have you without
religion----"
"It is fortunate that you can recognise the necessity of a
conscience," she said in a hard voice, without looking at him.
"I thank you in God's name."
The General was broken down by her harshness; this woman seemed
as if she could be at will a sister or a stranger to him. He
made one despairing stride towards the door. He would leave her
forever without another word. He was wretched; and the Duchess
was laughing within herself over mental anguish far more cruel
than the old judicial torture. But as for going away, it was not
in his power to do it. In any sort of crisis, a woman is, as it
were, bursting with a certain quantity of things to say; so long
as she has not delivered herself of them, she experiences the
sensation which we are apt to feel at the sight of something
incomplete.
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