Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/251

Rh to that interview; but it was too late to change her resolution. She employed the few minutes remaining to her before the arrival of Max in pious and energetic exhortations, but they were listened to with marked inattention, for Arsène only seemed interested in arranging her hair and smoothing the crumpled ribbon of her cap.

At last M. de Salligny appeared, contracting all of his features to give them an air of cheerfulness and assurance. He asked how she was feeling in a tone of voice which he strove to make natural, but which no cold in the head would have been able to give him. On her side, Arsène was no more at her ease; she stammered, she was unable to utter a single sentence, but she took the hand of Madame de Piennes and carried it to her lips as though to thank her. What was said during the next quarter of an hour was what is said everywhere between embarrassed people. Madame de Piennes alone maintained her accustomed calm demeanour, or rather, being better prepared she was more self-controlled. She frequently replied for Arsène, who found that her interpreter expressed her thoughts rather badly. The conversation languishing, Madame de Piennes remarked that the invalid was coughing a good deal, reminded her that the doctor had forbidden her to talk, and address-