lately."
"My dearest Clémence, will you permit me to speak to you without reserve?"
"Oh, yes, pray do!"
"How comes it that the least allusion to your husband always throws you into such a state of extraordinary alarm and uneasiness?"
"What an idea! Is it possible you can mean it seriously?" asked poor Madame d'Harville, trying to smile.
"Indeed, I am quite in earnest," rejoined her companion; "whenever you are speaking of him, your countenance assumes, even in spite of yourself—but how shall I make myself understood?" and Sarah, with the tone and fixed gaze of one who wished to read the most secret thoughts of the person she addressed, slowly and emphatically added, "a look of mingled aversion and fear!"
The fixed pallid features of Madame d'Harville at first defied even Sarah's practised eye, but her keen gaze soon detected a slight convulsive working of the mouth, with a tremulous movement of the under lip of her victim; but feeling it unsafe to pursue the subject farther at this moment so as to awaken the marquise's mistrust of her friendly intentions, by way, therefore, of concealing her real suspicions, she continued:
"Yes, just that sort of dislike any woman would entertain for a peevish, jealous, ill-tempered—"
At this explanation of the countess's meaning, as regarded Madame d'Harville's imagined dislike for her husband, a heavy load seemed taken from her; the working of her lip ceased, and she replied:
"Let me assure you M. d'Harville is neither peevish nor jealous." Then, as if searching for some means of breaking a conversation so painful to her feelings, she suddenly exclaimed, "Ah! here comes that tiresome friend of my husband's, the Duke de Lucenay. I hope he has not seen us. Where can he have sprung from? I thought he was a thousand miles off!"
"It was reported that he had gone somewhere in the East for a year or two, and behold, at the end of five months, here he is back again! His unexpected arrival must have sadly annoyed the Duchess de Lucenay, though poor De Lucenay is a very inoffensive creature," said Sarah, with an ill-natured smile. "Nor will Madame de Lucenay be the only one to feel vexation at his thus changing his mind; her friend, M. de St. Remy, will duly and affectionately sympathise in all her regrets on the subject."
"Come, come, my dear Sarah, I cannot allow you to scandalise; say that this return of M. de Lucenay is a nuisance to everybody; the duke is sufficiently disagreeable for you to generalise the regret his unexpected presence occasions."
"I do not slander, I merely repeat. It is also said that M. de St. Remy, the model of our young élégantes, whose splendid doings have filled all Paris, is all but ruined! 'Tis true, he has by no means reduced either his establishment or his expenditure; however, there are several ways of accounting for that; in the first place, Madame de Lucenay is immensely rich."
"What a horrible idea!"
"Still I only repeat what others say. There, the duke sees us; he is coming towards us; we must resign ourselves to our fate—miserable, is it not? I know nothing so hard to bear as that man's company; he makes himself so very disagreeable, and then laughs so disgustingly loud at the silly things he says. Indeed, he is so boisterous that the bare idea of him makes one think of pretending to faint, or any other pretext, to avoid him. Talking of fainting, pray let me beg of you, if you have the least regard for your fan or essence-bottle, to beware how you allow him to handle either, for he has the unfortunate habit of breaking whatever he touches, and all with the most facetious self-satisfied air imaginable."
END OF VOLUME I.
Volume 2
Table of Contents
CHAPTER VII. AN EVENING AT THE FARM.
CHAPTER XI. CLÉMENCE D'HARVILLE.
CHAPTER XIII. JUDGMENT AND EXECUTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE BALL.
Belonging to one of the first families in France, still young, and with a face that would have been agreeable had it not been for the almost ridiculous and disproportionate length of his nose, M. de Lucenay joined to a restless love of constant motion the habit of talking and laughing fearfully loud upon subjects quite at variance with good taste or polished manners, and throwing himself into attitudes so abrupt and awkward that it was only by recalling who he was, that his being found in the midst of the most distinguished societies in Paris could be accounted for, or a reason assigned for tolerating his gestures and language; for both of which he had now, by dint of long practice and adherence, acquired a sort of free license or impunity. He was shunned like the plague, although not deficient in a certain description of wit, which told here and there amid the indescribable confusion of remarkable phraseology which he allowed himself the use of; in fact, he was one of those unintentional instruments of vengeance one would always like to employ in the wholesale chastisement of persons who have rendered themselves either ridiculous or abhorrent.
The Duchess de Lucenay, one of the most agreeable, and, at the same time, most fashionable women in Paris (spite of her having numbered thirty summers), had more than once furnished matter of conversation among the scandal-dealers of Paris; but her errors, whatever they were supposed to be, were pardoned, in consideration of the heavy drawback of such a partner as M. de Lucenay.
Another feature in the character of this latter-named individual was a singular affectation of the most absurd and unknown expressions, relative to imaginary complaints and ridiculous infirmities he amused himself in supposing you suffered from, and concerning which he would make earnest inquiries, in a loud voice, and in the immediate presence of a hundred persons. But possessed of first-rate courage, and always ready to take the consequences of his disagreeable jokes, M. de Lucenay had been concerned in various affairs of honour arising out of them, with varied success; coming off sometimes victor, sometimes vanquished, without being in any way cured of his unpleasant and annoying tricks.
All