anger.

"Oh!"
After that sublime, "Oh!" Diane bowed her head on her hand and sat,

still, cold, and implacable as angels naturally may be expected to do,
seeing that they share none of the passions of humanity. At the sight

of the woman he loved in this terrible attitude, Victurnien forgot his
danger. Had he not just that moment wronged the most angelic creature

on earth? He longed for forgiveness, he threw himself before her, he
kissed her feet, he pleaded, he wept. Two whole hours the unhappy

young man spent in all kinds of follies, only to meet the same cold
face, while the great silent tears dropping one by one, were dried as

soon as they fell lest the worthy" target="_blank" title="a.不值得的；不足道的">unworthy lover should try to wipe them
away. The Duchess was acting a great agony, one of those hours which

stamp the woman who passes through them as something august and
sacred.

Two more hours went by. By this time the Count had gained possession
of Diane's hand; it felt cold and spiritless. The beautiful hand, with

all the treasures in its grasp, might have been supple wood; there was
nothing of Diane in it; he had taken it, it had not been given to him.

As for Victurnien, the spirit had ebbed out of his frame, he had
ceased to think. He would not have seen the sun in heaven. What was to

be done? What course should he take? What resolution should he make?
The man who can keep his head in such circumstances must be made of

the same stuff as the convict who spent the night in robbing the
Bibliotheque Royale of its gold medals, and repaired to his honest

brother in the morning with a request to melt down the plunder. "What
is to be done?" cried the brother. "Make me some coffee," replied the

thief. Victurnien sank into a bewildered stupor, darkness settled down
over his brain. Visions of past rapture flitted across the misty gloom

like the figures that Raphael painted against a black background; to
these he must bid farewell. Inexorable and disdainful, the Duchess

played with the tip of her scarf. She looked in irritation at
Victurnien from time to time; she coquetted with memories, she spoke

to her lover of his rivals as if anger had finally decided her to
prefer one of them to a man who could so change in one moment after

twenty-eight months of love.
"Ah! that charming young Felix de Vandenesse, so faithful as he was to

Mme. de Mortsauf, would never have permitted himself such a scene! He
can love, can de Vandenesse! De Marsay, that terrible de Marsay, such

a tiger as everyone thought him, was rough with other men; but like
all strong men, he kept his gentleness for women. Montriveau trampled

the Duchesse de Langeais under foot, as Othello killed Desdemona, in a
burst of fury which at any rate proved the extravagance of his love.

It was not like a paltry squabble. There was rapture in being so
crushed. Little, fair-haired, slim, and slender men loved to torment

women; they could only reign over poor, weak creatures; it pleased
them to have some ground for believing that they were men. The tyranny

of love was their one chance of asserting their power. She did not
know why she had put herself at the mercy of fair hair. Such men as de

Marsay, Montriveau, and Vandenesse, dark-haired and well grown, had a
ray of sunlight in their eyes."

It was a storm of epigrams. Her speeches, like bullets, came hissing
past his ears. Every word that Diane hurled at him was triple-barbed;

she humiliated, stung, and wounded him with an art that was all her
own, as half a score of savages can torture an enemy bound to a stake.

"You are mad!" he cried at last, at the end of his patience, and out
he went in God knows what mood. He drove as if he had never handled

the reins before, locked his wheels in the wheels of other vehicles,
collided with the curbstone in the Place Louis-Quinze, went he knew

not whither. The horse, left to its own devices, made a bolt for the
stable along the Quai d'Orsay; but as he turned into the Rue de

l'Universite, Josephin appeared to stop the runaway.
"You cannot go home, sir," the old man said, with a scared face; "they

have come with a warrant to arrest you."
Victurnien thought that he had been arrested on the criminal charge,

albeit there had not been time for the public prosecutor to receive
his instructions. He had forgotten the matter of the bills of

exchange, which had been stirred up again for some days past in the
form of orders to pay, brought by the officers of the court with

accompaniments in the shape of bailiffs, men in possession,
magistrates, commissaries, policemen, and other representatives of

social order. Like most guilty creatures, Victurnien had forgotten
everything but his crime.

"It is all over with me," he cried.
"No, M. le Comte, drive as fast as you can to the Hotel du Bon la

Fontaine, in the Rue de Grenelle. Mlle. Armande is waiting there for
you, the horses have been put in, she will take you with her."

Victurnien, in his trouble, caught like a drowning man at the branch
that came to his hand; he rushed off to the inn, reached the place,

and flung his arms about his aunt. Mlle. Armande cried as if her heart
would break; any one might have thought that she had a share in her

nephew's guilt. They stepped into the carriage. A few minutes later
they were on the road to Brest, and Paris lay behind them. Victurnien

uttered not a sound; he was paralyzed. And when aunt and nephew began
to speak, they talked at cross purposes; Victurnien, still laboring

under the unlucky misapprehension which flung him into Mlle. Armande's
arms, was thinking of his forgery; his aunt had the debts and the

bills on her mind.
"You know all, aunt," he had said.

"Poor boy, yes, but we are here. I am not going to scold you just yet.
Take heart."

"I must hide somewhere."
"Perhaps. . . . Yes, it is a very good idea."

"Perhaps I might get into Chesnel's house without being seen if we
timed ourselves to arrive in the middle of the night?"

"That will be best. We shall be better able to hide this from my
brother.--Poor angel! how unhappy he is!" said she, petting the

worthy" target="_blank" title="a.不值得的；不足道的">unworthy child.
"Ah! now I begin to know what dishonor means; it has chilled my love."

"Unhappy boy; what bliss and what misery!" And Mlle. Armande drew his
fevered face to her breast and kissed his forehead, cold and damp

though it was, as the holy women might have kissed the brow of the
dead Christ when they laid Him in His grave clothes. Following out the

excellent scheme suggested by the prodigal son, he was brought by
night to the quiet house in the Rue du Bercail; but chance ordered it

that by so doing he ran straight into the wolf's jaws, as the saying
goes. That evening Chesnel had been making arrangements to sell his

connection to M. Lepressoir's head-clerk. M. Lepressoir was the notary
employed by the Liberals, just as Chesnel's practice lay among the

aristocratic families. The young fellow's relatives were rich enough
to pay Chesnel the considerable sum of a hundred thousand francs in

cash.
Chesnel was rubbing his hands. "A hundred thousand francs will go a

long way in buying up debts," he thought. "The young man is paying a
high rate of interest on his loans. We will lock him up down here. I

will go yonder myself and bring those curs to terms."
Chesnel, honest Chesnel, upright, worthy Chesnel, called his darling

Comte Victurnien's creditors "curs."
Meanwhile his successor was making his way along the Rue du Bercail

just as Mlle. Armande's traveling carriage turned into it. Any young
man might be expected to feel some curiosity if he saw a traveling

carriage stop at a notary's door in such a town and at such an hour of
the night; the young man in question was sufficientlyinquisitive to

stand in a doorway and watch. He saw Mlle. Armande alight.
"Mlle. Armande d'Esgrignon at this time of night!" said he to himself.