“Do you mean to drive me to hell?” cried the marquis, seizing her hand and pressing it violently.
“Did you not drive me to hell five days ago? are you not leaving me at this very moment uncertain whether your love is sincere or not?”
“But how do I know whether your revenge may not lead you to obtain my life to tarnish it, instead of killing me?”
“Ah! you do not love me! you think of yourself and not of me!” she said angrily, shedding a few tears.
The coquettish creature well knew the power of her eyes when moistened by tears.
“Well, then,” he cried, beside himself, “take my life, but dry those tears.”
“Oh, my love! my love!” she exclaimed in a stifled voice: “those are the words, the accents, the looks I have longed for, to allow me to prefer your happiness to mine. But,” she added, “I ask one more proof of your love, which you say is so great. I wish to stay here only so long as may be needed to show the company that you are mine. I will not even drink a glass of water in the house of a woman who has twice tried to kill me, who is now, perhaps, plotting mischief against us,” and she showed the marquis the floating corner of Madame du Gua’s drapery. Then she dried her eyes and put her lips to the ear of the young man, who quivered as he felt the caress of her warm breath. “See that everything is prepared for my departure,” she said; “you shall take me yourself to Fougeres and there only will I tell you if I love you. For the second time I trust you. Will you trust me a second time?”
“Ah, Marie, you have brought me to a point where I know not what I do. I am intoxicated by your words, your looks, by you--by you, and I am ready to obey you.”
“Well, then, make me for an instant very happy. Let me enjoy the only triumph I desire. I want to breathe freely, to drink of the life I have dreamed, to feed my illusions before they are gone forever. Come--come into the ballroom and dance with me.”
They re-entered the room together, and though Mademoiselle de Verneuil was as completely satisfied in heart and vanity as any woman ever could be, the unfathomable gentleness of her eyes, the demure smile on her lips, the rapidity of the motions of a gay dance, kept the secret of her thoughts as the sea swallows those of the criminal who casts a weighted body into its depths. But a murmur of admiration ran through the company as, circling in each other’s arms, voluptuously interlaced, with heavy heads, and dimmed sight, they waltzed with a sort of frenzy, dreaming of the pleasures they hoped to find in a future union.