Maurice replied as composedly as possible to her inquiries, and then asked, "May I be allowed to see Mademoiselle de Gramont?"
"Mademoiselle de Gramont!" exclaimed Lady Vivian, raising her bushy eyebrows.
"Yes, she is with you. She is engaged as your humble companion,--is she not?"
"No, I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance."
If a bullet had passed through Maurice, he could not have sprung from his seat with a wilder bound, and hardly have dropped back more motionless.
Lady Vivian looked at him in amazement,--asked what had happened. Was he ill? Would he take anything? He had been very much fatigued, perhaps. He was so very pale! She felt quite alarmed; really it was distressing.
Making a desperate effort to recover from the stunning blow, he faltered out, "I heard that you made Mademoiselle de Gramont a proposition to"--
"To become my humble companion? Yes, I did so at the request of Count Damoreau. But she definitely declined, and I felt much relieved, for she was entirely too handsome for that position. Shortly afterward I heard of a young person who suited me much better. I thought it was a mistake of the footman's, last night, when he said you desired to see the young lady who accompanied me. It was somewhat singular to have one's humble companion included in a visit to one's self! Now I comprehend that you thought she was your cousin. I hope you are feeling better; your color is coming again."
Maurice was not listening. He had lost Madeleine anew. The agony of a second bereavement, the mystery that enveloped her fate, the dreadful uncertainty of tracing her, pressed upon him and rent his soul with fiercer throes than before. Muttering some hurried apology, he rose, staggered toward the door, and, to the amazement of the stoical footman, who was greatly scandalized thereby, the pertinacious stranger fairly reeled past him into the street.
Maurice, when he took his abrupt leave of Lady Vivian, did not return to the hotel. He felt as though he could not breathe, could not exist, shut within four walls, with the oppressive weight of his new disappointment crushing and stifling his spirit. He traversed the streets with a rapid pace, not knowing nor caring whither he went, if he only kept in motion. His own torturing thoughts pursued him like haunting fiends, driving him mercilessly hither and thither, and he sped onward and onward, as though by increased celerity he could fly from his intangible persecutors.