She possessed a
marvelous skill in reticence; she was charming in hypocrisy, lavish of
subtle promises, which revived hope and then melted away like ice in
the sun if you looked at them closely, and most treacherous in the
desire which she felt and inspired. At the close of this charming
encounter she produced the running noose of an invitation to call, and
flung it over him with a dainty demureness which the printed page can
never set forth.
"You will forget me," she said. "You will find so many women eager to
pay court to you instead of enlightening you. . . . But you will come
back to me undeceived. Are you coming to me first? . . . No. As you
will.--For my own part, I tell you frankly that your visits will be a
great pleasure to me. People of soul are so rare, and I think that you
are one of them.--Come, good-bye; people will begin to talk about us
if we talk together any longer."
She made good her words and took flight. Victurnien went soon
afterwards, but not before others had guessed his ecstatic condition;
his face wore the expression peculiar to happy men, something between
an Inquisitor's calm discretion and the self-contained beatitude of a
devotee, fresh from the confessional and absolution.
"Mme. de Maufrigneuse went pretty briskly to the point this evening,"
said the Duchesse de Grandlieu, when only half-a-dozen persons were
left in Mlle.
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