"My congratulations, mademoiselle, upon the readiness with which you begin to adapt yourself to the great role you are to play."
"Do you adapt yourself also, monsieur," she retorted angrily, and turned her shoulder to him.
"To be as the dust beneath the haughty feet of Madame la Marquise. I hope I shall know my place in future."
The phrase arrested her. She turned to him again, and he perceived that her eyes were shining now suspiciously. In an instant the mockery in him was quenched in contrition.
"Lord, what a beast I am, Aline!" he cried, as he advanced. "Forgive me if you can."
Almost had she turned to sue forgiveness from him. But his contrition removed the need.
"I'll try," said she, "provided that you undertake not to offend again."
"But I shall," said he. "I am like that. I will fight to save you, from yourself if need be, whether you forgive me or not."
They were standing so, confronting each other a little breathlessly, a little defiantly, when the others issued from the porch.
First came the Marquis of La Tour d'Azyr, Count of Solz, Knight of the Orders of the Holy Ghost and Saint Louis, and Brigadier in the armies of the King. He was a tall, graceful man, upright and soldierly of carriage, with his head disdainfully set upon his shoulders. He was magnificently dressed in a full-skirted coat of mulberry velvet that was laced with gold. His waistcoat, of velvet too, was of a golden apricot colour; his breeches and stockings were of black silk, and his lacquered, red-heeled shoes were buckled in diamonds. His powdered hair was tied behind in a broad ribbon of watered silk; he carried a little three-cornered hat under his arm, and a gold-hilted slender dress-sword hung at his side.
Considering him now in complete detachment, observing the magnificence of him, the elegance of his movements, the great air, blending in so extraordinary a manner disdain and graciousness, Andre-Louis trembled for Aline. Here was a practised, irresistible wooer, whose bonnes fortunes were become a by-word, a man who had hitherto been the despair of dowagers with marriageable daughters, and the desolation of husbands with attractive wives.
He was immediately followed by M. de Kercadiou, in completest contrast. On legs of the shortest, the Lord of Gavrillac carried a body that at forty-five was beginning to incline to corpulence and an enormous head containing an indifferent allotment of intelligence. His countenance was pink and blotchy, liberally branded by the smallpox which had almost extinguished him in youth. In dress he was careless to the point of untidiness, and to this and to the fact that he had never married--disregarding the first duty of a gentleman to provide himself with an heir--he owed the character of misogynist attributed to him by the countryside.