Wounded in her most secret susceptibilities, she had promised herself that for two or three hours she would keep her rival, who was then in her employ, at her house, to inflame her again and again with the most poignant and powerless jealousy, and leave herself free to pardon her after the punishment and forget her, and also the man of letters whom she had taken from the actress. He had already ceased to interest her, now that he no longer represented another women whose happiness she wished to steal. She would soon give proof of it, and also that the fop was bragging when he thought that he had awakened her to the pleasure of love. In spite of so many and such disturbing emotions, she had left his arms as insensible, as far off as ever that total ravishment by person which metamorphoses a coquette into a slave and enslaves her to the man who has initiated her into this complete intoxication. She acted, however, during this evening as if she had loved Jacques. The desire of torturing the woman by whom she had been so strangely saved and wounded was strong enough in her blasé heart to equal physical pleasure. I gained this evidence upon the spot by watching her in the distance talking, while I was making my way towards the spot where she was laughing with Jacques, though my progress was interrupted at intervals by Machault, further on by Miraut, and then by Bonnivet. The first of the three said to me: “I have not seen you at the school of arms lately. You missed the Italian fencer, San Giobbe. He is really wonderful.” “You did not tell me the other day,” the second said, “that you were painting Camille Favier’s portrait. It is very underhand of you to treat your old master in that way!” “Ah well, M. La Croix,” Bonnivet asked, “are you going to hang anything at the next exhibition?” I felt inclined to answer the incorrigible fencer: “It is not a question of assaults, parade and laughable combats; do you not see that there is a prospect of a real duel, actual sword thrusts, and the sacrifice of some one’s life?” To my dear master I felt inclined to say: “I shall not make you sell a picture more, shall I? Why play the part with me of a protector who is interested in the work of one of his pupils? Spare me this comedy, and let me try to prevent a catastrophe.” To the husband I would like to have said: “If you had watched over your wife more carefully in the beginning she would not be what she is, and this drama would not be enacted in your drawing-room.” In place of those replies, in each case I uttered a few vain, untruthful words. My desire was to reach Jacques soon enough at least to prevent him being in the vicinity of Madam de Bonnivet while the acting was going on. Perhaps I should succeed, as I was only a couple of paces away from him, when Queen Anne, as if she had guessed that I was this time bearing a message from her rival and should deliver it, decided to call me, and said in a tone of imperceptible raillery—