oyed the power to
perceive true beauty, and the man of pleasure must be aroused to
admiration by a bold glance and a meaning smile, and will only seek
satisfaction along the trail left by vice. Louise-Angelique was
admirably adapted for her way of life; not that her features wore an
expression of shameless effrontery, or that the words that passed her
lips bore habitual testimony to the disorders of her existence, but that
under a calm and sedate demeanour there lurked a secret and indefinable
charm. Many other women possessed more regular features, but none of
them had a greater power of seduction. We must add that she owed that
power entirely to her physical perfections, for except in regard to
the devices necessary to her calling, she showed no cleverness,
being ignorant, dull and without inner resources of any kind. As her
temperament led her to share the desires she excited, she was really
incapable of resisting an attack conducted with skill and ardour, and
if the Duc de Vitry had not been so madly in love, which is the same
as saying that he was hopelessly blind, silly, and dense to everything
around him, he might have found a score of opportunities to overcome
her resistance. We have already seen that she was so straitened in money
matters that she had been driven to try to sell her jewels that very,
morning.

Jeannin was the first to 'break silence.

"You are astonished at my visit, I know, my charming Angelique. But you
must excuse my thus appearing so unexpectedly before you. The truth is,
I found it impossible to leave Paris without seeing you once more."

"Thank you for your kind remembrance," said she, "but I did not at all
expect it."

"Come, come, you are offended with me."

She gave him a glance of mingled disdain and resentment; but he went on,
in a timid, wistful tone--

"I know that my conduct must have seemed strange to you, and I
acknowledge that nothing can justify a man for suddenly leaving the
woman he loves--I do not dare to say the woman who loves him--without a
word of explanation. But, dear Angelique, I was jealous."

"Jealous!" she repeated incredulously.

"I tried my best to overcome the feeling, and I hid my suspicions from
you. Twenty times I came to see you bursting with anger and determined
to overwhelm you with reproaches, but at the sight of your beauty I
forgot everything but that I loved you. My suspicions dissolved before a
smile; one word from your lips charmed me into