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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Will you have my horse, to ride after your prize?" said the Colonel. The Baron took the banter poured upon him by Madame de Vaudremont and Montcornet with a good grace, which secured their silence as to the events of the evening, when his friend exchanged his charger for a rich and pretty young wife.
"Will you be annoyed with me," answered Madame de Vaudremont, "if a remnant of affection prevents my telling you; and if I forbid you to make the smallest advances to that young lady? It would be at the risk of your life perhaps." "To lose your good graces, madame, would be worse than to lose my life." "Martial," said the Countess severely, "she is Madame de Soulanges.
Madame de Vaudremont, in fact, felt as much sorrow as she feigned cheerfulness; she had believed that she had found in Martial a man of talent on whose support she could count for adorning her life with all the enchantment of power; and at this moment she perceived her mistake, as injurious to her reputation as to her good opinion of herself.
"I fancied that Madame de Vaudremont had long been devoted to M. de Soulanges," said the lady, recovering a little from the suppressed grief which had clouded the fairness of her face. "For a week past the Countess has been faithless," replied the Colonel. "But you must have seen poor Soulanges when he came in; he is till trying to disbelieve in his disaster." "Yes, I saw him," said the lady.
But he was strangely surprised to see tears in the strange lady's eyes, which seemed wholly absorbed in gazing on Madame de Vaudremont. "You are married, no doubt, madame?" he asked her at length, in hesitating tones. "Yes, monsieur," replied the lady. "And your husband is here, of course?" "Yes, monsieur." "And why, madame, do you remain in this spot? Is it to attract attention?"
The "ancient" Duchess, seeing the jaunty Baron prowling round her chair, smiled with sardonic irony, and looked at Madame de Vaudremont with an expression that made Montcornet laugh. "If the old witch affects to be friendly," thought the Baron, "she is certainly going to play me some spiteful trick. Madame," he said, "you have, I am told, undertaken the charge of a very precious treasure."
She is bending forward to see Madame de Vaudremont below the crowd of heads in constant motion; the high head-dresses prevent her having a clear view." "I see her now, my dear fellow. You had only to say that she had the whitest skin of all the women here; I should have known whom you meant. I had noticed her before; she has the loveliest complexion I ever admired.
When the movement of a new figure, invented by a dancer named Trenis, and named after him, brought Martial face to face with the Colonel "I have won your horse," said he, laughing. "Yes, but you have lost eighty thousand francs a year!" retorted Montcornet, glancing at Madame de Vaudremont. "What do I care?" replied Martial. "Madame de Soulanges is worth millions!"
Seeing Soulanges, however, still standing quite near the sofa on which Madame de Vaudremont was seated, not apparently having understood the glance by which the lady had conveyed to him that they were both playing a ridiculous part, the volcanic Provencal again knit the black brows that overshadowed his blue eyes, smoothed his chestnut curls to keep himself in countenance, and without betraying the agitation which made his heart beat, watched the faces of the Countess and of M. de Soulanges while still chatting with his neighbors.
Quite incapable of controlling his secret transports of impatience, Martial went towards Madame de Vaudremont with a bow. On seeing the Provencal, Soulanges gave him a covert glance, and impertinently turned away his head. Solemn silence now reigned in the room, where curiosity was at the highest pitch.
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