of the men, obtained it as her rightful due.

Still, under the gay smiles and lively badinage which she showered on
all around as she moved through the brilliant throng, Angelique felt a
bitter spirit of discontent rankling in her bosom. She was angry, and
she knew why, and still more angry because upon herself lay the blame!
Not that she blamed herself for having rejected Le Gardeur: she had done
that deliberately and for a price; but the price was not yet paid, and
she had, sometimes, qualms of doubt whether it would ever be paid!

She who had had her own way with all men, now encountered a man who
spoke and looked like one who had had his own way with all women, and
who meant to have his own way with her!

She gazed often upon the face of Bigot, and the more she looked the more
inscrutable it appeared to her. She tried to sound the depths of his
thoughts, but her inquiry was like the dropping of a stone into the
bottomless pit of that deep cavern of the dark and bloody ground talked
of by adventurous voyageurs from the Far West.

That Bigot admired her beyond all other women at the ball, was visible
enough from the marked attention which he lavished upon her and the
courtly flatteries that flowed like honey from his lips. She also read
her preeminence in his favor from the jealous eyes of a host of rivals
who watched her every movement. But Angelique felt that the admiration
of the Intendant was not of that kind which had driven so many men mad
for her sake. She knew Bigot would never go mad for her, much as he was
fascinated! and why? why?

Angelique, while listening to his honeyed flatteries as he led her
gaily through the ballroom, asked herself again and again, why did he
carefully avoid the one topic that filled her thoughts, or spoke of it
only in his mocking manner, which tortured her to madness with doubt and
perplexity?

As she leaned on the arm of the courtly Intendant, laughing like one
possessed with the very spirit of gaiety at his sallies and jests, her
mind was torn with bitter comparisons as she remembered Le Gardeur, his
handsome face and his transparent admiration, so full of love and ready
for any sacrifice for her sake,--and she had cast it all away for this
inscrutable voluptuary, a man who had no respect for women, but who
admired her person, condescended to be pleased with it, and affected to
be caught by the lures she held out to him, but which she felt would be
of no more avail to hold