"Who marries her! Then these creatures are married?--Ah! they are
married--They are honored, too, are they not? And because they are more
easy of approach, they are thought more beautiful and more agreeable
than those who are merely honest wives? Ah! it is too silly!--Rosas! I
took him for a man of sense!--If I were to tell him myself that she is
my husband's mistress, what would the duke answer?"

"He would not believe you, and you would not do that, madame!" said
Lissac.

"Why?"

"Because it would be an act of cowardice, and because you are the best,
the noblest of women!"

Instinctively he drew near her, lowering his voice, embracing with his
glance that fine, charming beauty, that grief heightened by a burning
brilliancy.

She raised her fine, clear eyes to Lissac, whose look troubled her, and
said:

"And how have these served me?--Kindness, trickery!--Trickery,
chastity!--Ask all these men! All of them will go to Mademoiselle Kayser
and not to me!"

"To you, madame," murmured Guy, "all that there is of devotion and
earnestness, yes, all of the tenderest and the truest will go to you as
respectful homage."

"Respect?--Yes, respect to us!--And with it goes the home! But to her!
Ah! to her, love! And what if I wish to be loved myself?"

"Loved by him!" said Lissac in a low tone, as if he did not know what he
said; and his hands instinctively sought Adrienne's. They trembled.

A woman's perfume and something like the keen odor of flowers assailed
his nostrils. He had never felt the impulse of burning compassion which
at a sign from this saint, would have driven him to attempt the
impossible, to affront the noisy throng yonder.

"Loved by him, yes, by him!" answered Adrienne, with the mournful shake
of the head of one who sees her joy vanish in the distance like a
sinking bark.

She had been so happy! She had thought herself so dearly loved! Ah!
those many cowardly lies uttered by Sulpice!

"Do not speak to me of him!" she suddenly said. "I hate him, too!--I do
more than that! I despise him! I never wish to see him again!--never.
You hear! never!"

"What will you do?" Lissac asked.

"I know nothing about it!--I wish to leave! Now, I have no more parading
to make in this ball, I think, I have no longer to receive the guests
whose insulting smiles were like blows! I will go, go!"

"Adrienne!"

"Will go at once!"

She felt no astonishment at hearing the name Adrienne spoken suddenly
and unrefle