Nobody intercepted it.
"See how she has prepared herself," Rastignac said, turning to de
Marsay. "What a virginal toilette; what swan's grace in that
snow-white throat of hers! How white her gown is, and she is wearing
a sash like a little girl; she looks round like a madonna inviolate.
Who would think that you had passed that way?"
"The very reason why she looks as she does," returned de Marsay, with
a triumphant air.
The two young men exchanged a smile. Mme. de Maufrigneuse saw the
smile and guessed at their conversation, and gave the pair a broadside
of her eyes, an art acquired by Frenchwomen since the Peace, when
Englishwomen imported it into this country, together with the shape of
their silver plate, their horses and harness, and the piles of insular
ice which impart a refreshing coolness to the atmosphere of any room
in which a certain number of British females are gathered together.
The young men grew serious as a couple of clerks at the end of a
homily from headquarters before the receipt of an expected bonus.
The Duchess when she lost her heart to Victurnien had made up her mind
to play the part of romantic Innocence, a role much understudied
subsequently by other women, for the misfortune of modern youth. Her
Grace of Maufrigneuse had just come out as an angel at a moment's
notice, precisely as she meant to turn to literature and science
somewhere about her fortieth year instead of taking to devotion.
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