At that moment when the lawyer went fluttering up to the candelabrum
by which Madame de Soulanges sat, pale, timid, and apparently alive
only in her eyes, her husband came to the door of the ballroom, his
eyes flashing with anger. The old Duchess, watchful of everything,
flew to her nephew, begged him to give her his arm and find her
carriage, affecting to be mortally bored, and hoping thus to prevent a
vexatious outbreak. Before going she fired a singular glance of
intelligence at her niece, indicating the enterprising knight who was
about to address her, and this signal seemed to say, "There he is,
avenge yourself!"
Madame de Vaudremont caught these looks of the aunt and niece; a
sudden light dawned on her mind; she was frightened lest she was the
dupe of this old woman, so cunning and so practised in intrigue.
"That perfidious Duchess," said she to herself, "has perhaps been
amusing herself by preaching morality to me while playing me some
spiteful trick of her own."
At this thought Madame de Vaudremont's pride was perhaps more roused
than her curiosity to disentangle the thread of this intrigue.
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