“Oh, yesterday’s ball? I was admiring you.”
“Indeed; but I was not there.”
“Is it necessary for you to be present, Jane, for me to admire you; cannot one admire you in remembrance as truly as in person? and if, when absent, you triumph by comparison, the victory is only so much the greater.”
“I daresay, and it was in order to carry out the comparison to its utmost limits that you danced four times with Madame de Bonneuil; they are very pretty, are they not, those dark women who cover themselves with rouge, and have eyebrows like the Chinese mannikins on my screens and moustaches like a grenadier.”
“Do you know what we talked about during those four dances.”
“It is true then, that you danced four times with her?”
“It is true, no doubt, since you say so.”
“Is that a proper sort of answer?”
“What other could I give? could anyone contradict what was said by so pretty a mouth? not I certainly, who would still bless it, even though it were pronouncing my sentence of death.”
And, as if to await this sentence, Thibault fell on his knees before the Countess, but at that moment, the door opened, and Lisette rushed in full of alarm.