looking at herself
all the while:

"Yes, I received your letter. Indeed, I was charmed to receive it. Now,
should you ever feel inclined to tell your brother any of the vile
stories about me that you have threatened me with, I could easily satisfy
him that the only source of your lying tale-bearing was anger with me for
repulsing a criminal passion as it deserved. Consider yourself warned, my
dear boy--and au revoir."

As pleased as an actress who has just delivered a telling speech with
fine effect, she passed him and left the room smiling, with a little curl
at the corners of her mouth, triumphant and without anger. And he did not
kill her!

CHAPTER XVII

AN ITEM OF NEWS

In the evening preceding that ill-omened day, a few moments after Frantz
had stealthily left his room on Rue de Braque, the illustrious Delobelle
returned home, with downcast face and that air of lassitude and
disillusionment with which he always met untoward events.

"Oh! mon Dieu, my poor man, what has happened?" instantly inquired Madame
Delobelle, whom twenty years of exaggerated dramatic pantomime had not
yet surfeited.

Before replying, the ex-actor, who never failed to precede his most
trivial words with some facial play, learned long before for stage
purposes, dropped his lower lip, in token of disgust and loathing, as if
he had just swallowed something very bitter.

"The matter is that those Rislers are certainly ingrates or egotists,
and, beyond all question, exceedingly ill-bred. Do you know what I just
learned downstairs from the concierge, who glanced at me out of the
corner of his eye, making sport of me? Well, Frantz Risler has gone! He
left the house a short time ago, and has left Paris perhaps ere this,
without so much as coming to shake my hand, to thank me for the welcome
he has received here. What do you think of that? For he didn't say
good-by to you two either, did he? And yet, only a month ago, he was
always in our rooms, without any remonstrance from us."

Mamma Delobelle uttered an exclamation of genuine surprise and grief.
Desiree, on the contrary, did not say a word or make a motion. She was
always the same little iceberg.

Oh! wretched mother, turn your eyes upon your daughter. See that
transparent pallor, those tearless eyes which gleam unwaveringly, as if
their thoughts and their gaze were concentrated on some object visible to
them alone. Cause that poor suffering heart to open itself to you.
Questio