"Poor fellow!" she thought; "he has not had one faithless thought; he
loves me as he did on the first day; he tells me all--Philoxene!" she
cried, noticing her maid, who was standing near and pretending to
arrange the toilet-table.
"Madame la duchesse?"
"A mirror, child!"
Eleonore looked at herself, saw the fine razor-like lines traced on
her brow, which disappeared at a little distance; she sighed, and in
that sigh she felt she bade adieu to love. A brave thought came into
her mind, a manly thought, outside of all the pettiness of women,--a
thought which intoxicates for a moment, and which explains, perhaps,
the clemency of the Semiramis of Russia when she married her young and
beautiful rival to Momonoff.
"Since he has not been faithless, he shall have the girl and her
millions," she thought,--"provided Mademoiselle Mignon is as ugly as
he says she is."
Three raps, circumspectly given, announced the duke, and his wife went
herself to the door to let him in.
"Ah! I see you are better, my dear," he cried, with the counterfeit
joy that courtiers assume so readily, and by which fools are so
readily taken in.
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