第19章

There was a certain drawing in of the inner line of the lips which, to a close observer, indicated an ironical bent.

The Duchesse de Langeais, realising that a fleeting glory was to be won by such a conquest, made up her mind to gain a lover in Armand de Montriveau during the brief interval before the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse brought him to be introduced.She would prefer him above the others; she would attach him to herself, display all her powers of coquetry for him.It was a fancy, such a merest Duchess's whim as furnished a Lope or a Calderon with the plot of the Dog in the Manger.She would not suffer another woman to engross him; but she had not the remotest intention of being his.

Nature had given the Duchess every qualification for the part of coquette, and education had perfected her.Women envied her, and men fell in love with her, not without reason.Nothing that can inspire love, justify it, and give it lasting empire was wanting in her.Her style of beauty, her manner, her voice, her bearing, all combined to give her that instinctive coquetry which seems to be the consciousness of power.Her shape was graceful; perhaps there was a trace of self-consciousness in her changes of movement, the one affectation that could be laid to her charge;but everything about her was a part of her personality, from her least little gesture to the peculiar turn of her phrases, the demure glance of her eyes.Her great lady's grace, her most striking characteristic, had not destroyed the very French quick mobility of her person.There was an extraordinary fascination in her swift, incessant changes of attitude.She seemed as if she surely would be a most delicious mistress when her corset and the encumbering costume of her part were laid aside.All the rapture of love surely was latent in the freedom of her expressive glances, in her caressing tones, in the charm of her words.She gave glimpses of the high-born courtesan within her, vainly protesting against the creeds of the duchess.

You might sit near her through an evening, she would be gay and melancholy in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed spontaneous.She could be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or confiding at will.Her apparent good nature was real; she had no temptation to descend to malignity.But at each moment her mood changed; she was full of confidence or craft; her moving tenderness would give place to a heart-breaking hardness and insensibility.Yet how paint her as she was, without bringing together all the extremes of feminine nature? In a word, the Duchess was anything that she wished to be or to seem.Her face was slightly too long.There was a grace in it, and a certain thinness and fineness that recalled the portraits of the Middle Ages.Her skin was white, with a faint rose tint.Everything about her erred, as it were, by an excess of delicacy.

M.de Montriveau willingly consented to be introduced to the Duchesse de Langeais; and she, after the manner of persons whose sensitive taste leads them to avoid banalities, refrained from overwhelming him with questions and compliments.She received him with a gracious deference which could not fail to flatter a man of more than ordinary powers, for the fact that a man rises above the ordinary level implies that he possesses something of that tact which makes women quick to read feeling.If the Duchess showed any curiosity, it was by her glances; her compliments were conveyed in her manner; there was a winning grace displayed in her words, a subtle suggestion of a desire to please which she of all women knew the art of manifesting.Yet her whole conversation was but, in a manner, the body of the letter; the postscript with the principal thought in it was still to come.After half an hour spent in ordinary talk, in which the words gained all their value from her tone and smiles, M.de Montriveau was about to retire discreetly, when the Duchess stopped him with an expressive gesture.

"I do not know, monsieur, whether these few minutes during which I have had the pleasure of talking to you proved so sufficiently attractive, that I may venture to ask you to call upon me; I am afraid that it may be very selfish of me to wish to have you all to myself.If I should be so fortunate as to find that my house is agreeable to you, you will always find me at home in the evening until ten o'clock."The invitation was given with such irresistible grace, that M.de Montriveau could not refuse to accept it.When he fell back again among the groups of men gathered at a distance from the women, his friends congratulated him, half laughingly, half in earnest, on the extraordinary reception vouchsafed him by the Duchesse de Langeais.The difficult and brilliant conquest had been made beyond a doubt, and the glory of it was reserved for the Artillery of the Guard.It is easy to imagine the jests, good and bad, when this topic had once been started; the world of Paris salons is so eager for amusement, and a joke lasts for such a short time, that everyone is eager to make the most of it while it is fresh.

All unconsciously, the General felt flattered by this nonsense.

From his place where he had taken his stand, his eyes were drawn again and again to the Duchess by countless wavering reflections.

He could not help admitting to himself that of all the women whose beauty had captivated his eyes, not one had seemed to be a more exquisite embodiment of faults and fair qualities blended in a completeness that might realise the dreams of earliest manhood.

Is there a man in any rank of life that has not felt indefinable rapture in his secret soul over the woman singled out (if only in his dreams) to be his own; when she, in body, soul, and social aspects, satisfies his every requirement, a thrice perfect woman?