Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/114

110 concerned in this marriage—Father Pérot, Finette, and Monsieur de Lancy. The priest and the maid-servant may be silenced; and for Don Giovanni—we will talk of him to-morrow. Stay, has he any letters of yours in his possession?"

"He returns my letters one by one as he receives them," she mutters.

"Good—it is so easy to retract what one has said; but so difficult to deny one's handwriting."

"The De Cevennes do not lie, monsieur!"

"Do they not? What, madame, have you acted no lies, though you may not have spoken them? Have you never lied with your face, when you have worn a look of calm indifference, while the mental effort with which you stopped the violent beating of your heart produced a dull physical torture in your breast; when, in the crowded opera-house, you heard his step upon the stage? Wasted lies, madame; wasted torture; for your idol was not worth them. Your god laughed at your worship, because he was a false god, and the attributes for which you worshipped him—truth, loyalty, and genius, such as man never before possessed—were not his, but the offspring of your own imagination, with which you invested him, because you were in love with his handsome face. Bah! madame, after all, you were only the fool of a chiselled profile and a melodious voice. You are not the first of your sex so fooled; Heaven forbid you should be the last!"

"You have shown me why I should hate this man; show me my revenge, if you wish to serve me. My countrywomen do not forgive. Gaston de Lancy, to have been the slave of your every word; the blind idolator of your every glance; to have given so much; and, as my reward, to reap only your contempt!"

There are no tears in her eyes as she says this in a hoarse voice. Perhaps long years hence she may come to weep over this wild infatuation—now, her despair is too bitter for tears.

The lounger still preserves the charming indifference which stamps him of her own class. He says, in reply to her entreaty,—

"I can lead you to your revenge, madame, if your noble Spanish blood does not recoil from the ordeal. Dress yourself to-morrow night in your servant's clothes, wearing of course a thick veil; take a hackney coach, and at ten o'clock be at the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne. I will join you there. You shall have your revenge, madame, and I will show you how to turn that revenge (which is in itself an expensive luxury) to practical account. In a few days you may perhaps be able to say, 'There is no such person as Gaston de Lancy: the terrible delusion was only a dream; I have awoke, and I am free!"