He guessed the terrible truth revealed by the Duchess's
nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the storm like a lake
rising in flood.
"If you told me the truth yesterday, be mine, dear Antoinette,"
he cried; "you shall----"
"In the first place," said she composedly, thrusting him back
as he came nearer--"in the first place, you are not to
compromise me. My woman might overhear you. Respect me, I beg
of you. Your familiarity is all very well in my boudoir in an
evening; here it is quite different. Besides, what may your 'you
shall' mean? 'You shall.' No one as yet has ever used that word
to me. It is quite ridiculous, it seems to me, absolutely
ridiculous.
"Will you surrender nothing to me on this point?"
"Oh! do you call a woman's right to dispose of herself a
'point?' A capital point indeed; you will permit me to be
entirely my own mistress on that 'point.'"
"And how if, believing in your promises to me, I should
absolutely require it?"
"Oh! then you would prove that I made the greatest possible
mistake when I made you a promise of any kind; and I should beg
you to leave me in peace."
The General's face grew white; he was about to spring to her
side, when Mme de Langeais rang the bell, the maid appeared, and,
smiling with a mocking grace, the Duchess added, "Be so good as
to return when I am visible."
Then Montriveau felt the hardness of a woman as cold and keen as
a steel blade; she was crushing in her scorn. In one moment she
had snapped the bonds which held firm only for her lover.
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