The countess, who had but a vague idea of prosody, understood simply that she had again incurred the displeasure of D’Argenton. The fact is that he had begun to affect her in a manner quite beyond her own control, and which, in its unreasoning terror, was somewhat like the timid worship offered by the Japanese to their hideous idols.
Under the influence of his presence she was more foolish by far than nature had made her; her piquancy forsook her, and the versatility that rendered her so charmingly absurd was quite gone. But D’Argenton relented, and suspended his hygienic exercise for a moment.
“I shall be most happy to recite anything, madame, at your command; but what?”
Here Moronval interposed. “Recite the ‘Credo,’ my dear fellow,” he said.
“Very well, then; I am satisfied to obey you.”
The poem commenced gently enough with the words,—
“Madame, your toilette is charming.”
Then irony deepened to bitterness, bitterness to fury, and concluded in these terrific words:
“Good Lord, deliver me from this woman so terrible,
Who drains from my heart its life-blood.”
As if these extraordinary words had aroused in his memory most painful recollections, D’Argenton relapsed into silence, and said not another word the whole evening. Poor Ida was also thoughtful, haunted by vague fears of the noble ladies who had so warped the gentle spirit of her poet, so drained his heart that there was not a drop left for her.