How accurately Sendlingen had measured this woman!  Another would have cried out against him at this accusation—­or burst into tears and so disarmed a less adamantine man.  She did not blanch; she did not lift her hand to cover her unaltered features, but listened as idly as she would to the last plaint of the fool who might blown out his brains at her feet.  The false Cantagnac pursued in his natural voice, rancid and imperious, rolling out the gutturals like a heavy wagon thundering over an old road.

“It follows, madame, that if you run to your husband at a faster gait than you took to run away with the Baron of Linden, to inform him of my proposition, I will tell him what you hear—­I will accuse you of infanticide, of unfaithfulness—­”

“He knows that!” ejaculated the woman with irony and in defiance.  “Ask him, if you do not believe.”

“Impossible.”

“He would not say a word to anybody, and I would not have confessed only I was driven to it.”

“And he forgave you?”

“All!”

“He is very grand; and few men of my acquaintance would not at least have caned you smartly.  However, it was not long after the ‘removal’ of your child, to put it mildly, that you threw yourself into the swim of distractions, such as were to be had hereabouts.  The old marchioness’ circle soon surrounded you; she was one of my company’s instruments, and from that time we counted on you as a coadjutrix some day.”

“On me!”

“Precisely! to whom should we look for aid and complicity in our concealed and wary work but to the embodiment of permanent and domestic corruption?  You are merely an impulse—­we are a policy, and you will be our bondwoman.  Ah, we are merely men—­not fools, scoundrels or gods like your husband, for only such would tolerate depravity like yours.”

“He is like a god,” said Cesarine, trembling, in a low, hushed voice.  “When he speaks, it seems to me that it is what people call conscience.”

“How long is it since you acknowledged this superiority?” sneered the sham Marseillais.

“Too short a while, alas! some few minutes,” sighed she.

“Well, granting he is at least a demi-god, he is a power which we have an interest in destroying.  Hercules became a nuisance to neglectful stable-keepers, and like conservative institutions.  Let us have done with him.  But, first, the final training of yourself.  I repeat that the marchioness’ house was the rendezvous at the gates of Paris, where we assembled our bearers of intelligence.  Under cover of chit-chat and vocal-waltzes, we heard reports and issued orders.  It was necessary to link you to us and we employed our foremost captivator, the dandy of two countries, the international Lothario, the Viscount-baron Gratian von Linden-hohen-Linden-cum de Terremonde.  Luckily, too, he had been at the same period as myself, smitten with your vernal charms, and he entered upon his amorous mission with gusto.