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Updated: May 31, 2025
"He is at La Rochette, within a day's ride, and only detained there by a touch of fever. In any case he promises to be here by the end of the week. By Saturday, then, Condillac will have passed out of our power; it will be lost to you irretrievably. Will you lose La Vauvraye as well?" He let his hand fall to his side, and turned, fully to face her. "What can I do?
By this time to-morrow I shall be ready to start upon my return journey. I shall have then the honour to wait upon you again, to the end that I may receive from you the charge of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. I shall count upon your having her here, in readiness to set out with me, by noon to-morrow."
She laughed lazily, her lip curling, her face twisting oddly, and mechanically she began to draw on again the glove she had drawn off. "By your face I see how well you understand me," she sneered. "The trouble concerns Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye." "From Paris does it come from Court?" His voice was sunk. She nodded. "You are a miracle of intuition today, Tressan."
In the great hall of Condillac, where the Marquise, her son, and Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye had been at dinner, a sudden confusion had been spread by the arrival of that courier so soon as it was known that he bore letters from Florimond, Marquis de Condillac. Madame had risen hastily, fear and defiance blending in her face, and she had at once commanded mademoiselle's withdrawal.
Later, since he could not be heir to Condillac, the Marquise's eyes, greedy of advancement for him, had fallen covetously upon the richer La Vauvraye, whose lord had then no son, whose heiress was a little girl. By an alliance easy to compass, since the lords of Condillac and La Vauvraye were lifelong friends, Marius's fortunes might handsomely have been mended.
And as now they rode amain she fell to thanking him, shyly at first, then, as she gathered confidence in her subject, with a greater fervour. But he interrupted her ere she had gone far, "Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye," said he, "you overstate the matter." His tone was chilling almost; and she felt as she had been rebuked.
Loved her for herself, apart from all worldly advantages that must accrue to him from an alliance with her. His mother saw in that projected marriage no more than the acquisition of the lands of La Vauvraye, and she may even have thought that he himself saw no more.
There were too many men in the courtyard for his liking, and the more time they waited, the more likely were they to suffer interruption. Their aim must be to get the thing done quickly, and then quickly to depart before an alarm could be raised. "Our trouble at Condillac concerns Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye." Florimond started forward, with a ready assumption of lover-like solicitude.
And the gross, foolish Seneschal, under the spell of her magnificent eyes, slowly raised his cup to his lips and drank to the success of that murderous business. Marius stood still, a frown between his eyes haled thither by the mention of La Vauvraye. He might be winning it, as his mother said, but he would have preferred to have won it differently.
From that they passed on to talk of Valerie herself, of her earlier life at La Vauvraye, and later the conversation shifted to Garnache, and she questioned him touching the warring he had seen in early youth, and afterwards asked him for particulars of Paris that wonderful city which to her mind was the only earthly parallel of Paradise and of the life at Court.
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