She got no answer; the marquis, absorbed in thought, was listening in fancy to the prophetic reasons which Marie had given him in the midst of the same chiefs at La Vivetiere, urging him to abandon the struggle of kings against peoples. But the young man’s soul was too proud, too lofty, too full perhaps of conviction, to abandon an enterprise he had once begun, and he decided at this moment, to continue it boldly in the face of all obstacles. He raised his head haughtily, and for the first time noticed that Madame du Gua was speaking to him.
“Your mind is no doubt at Fougeres,” she remarked bitterly, seeing how useless her efforts to attract his attention had been. “Ah, monsieur, I would give my life to put _her_ within your power, and see you happy with her.”
“Then why have you done all you could to kill her?”
“Because I wish her dead or in your arms. Yes, I may have loved the Marquis de Montauran when I thought him a hero, but now I feel only a pitying friendship for him; I see him shorn of all his glory by a fickle love for a worthless woman.”
“As for love,” said the marquis, in a sarcastic tone, “you judge me wrong. If I loved that girl, madame, I might desire her less; if it were not for you, perhaps I should not think of her at all.”
“Here she is!” exclaimed Madame du Gua, abruptly.
The haste with which the marquis looked round went to the heart of the woman; but the clear light of the wax candles enabled her to see every change on the face of the man she loved so violently, and when he turned back his face, smiling at her woman’s trick, she fancied there was still some hope of recovering him.
“What are you laughing at?” asked the Comte de Bauvan.
“At a soap-bubble which has burst,” interposed Madame du Gua, gaily. “The marquis, if we are now to believe him, is astonished that his heart ever beat the faster for that girl who presumes to call herself Mademoiselle de Verneuil. You know who I mean.”
“That girl!” echoed the count. “Madame, the author of a wrong is bound to repair it. I give you my word of honor that she is really the daughter of the Duc de Verneuil.”
“Monsieur le comte,” said the marquis, in a changed voice, “which of your statements am I to believe,--that of La Vivetiere, or that now made?”