II

Countess de Mascaret was waiting in her room for dinner time, like a criminal sentenced to death, awaits the hour of his execution.  What was he going to do?  Had he come home?  Despotic, passionate, ready for any violence as he was, what was he meditating, what had he made up his mind to do?  There was no sound in the house, and every moment she looked at the clock.  Her lady’s maid had come and dressed her for the evening, and had then left the room again.  Eight o’clock struck and almost at the same moment there were two knocks at the door, and the butler came in and told her that dinner was ready.

“Has the Count come in?” “Yes, Madame la Comtesse; he is in the dining-room.”

For a little moment she felt inclined to arm herself with a small revolver which she had bought some time previously, foreseeing the tragedy which was being rehearsed in her heart.  But she remembered that all the children would be there, and she took nothing except a smelling bottle.  He rose somewhat ceremoniously from his chair.  They exchanged a slight bow, and sat down.  The three boys, with their tutor, Abbe Martin, were on her right, and the three girls, with Miss Smith, their English governess, were on her left.  The youngest child, who was only three months old, remained upstairs with his nurse.

The Abbe said grace as usual, when there was no company, for the children did not come down to dinner when there were guests present; then they began dinner.  The Countess, suffering from emotion, which she had not at all calculated upon, remained with her eyes cast down, while the Count scrutinized, now the three boys, and now the three girls, with uncertain, unhappy looks, which traveled from one to the other.  Suddenly, pushing his wine-glass from him, it broke, and the wine was spilt on the tablecloth, and at the slight noise caused by this little accident, the Countess started up from her chair, and for the first time they looked at each other.  Then, almost every moment, in spite of themselves, in spite of the irritation of their nerves caused by every glance, they did not cease to exchange looks, rapid as pistol shots.

The Abbe, who felt that there was some cause for embarrassment which he could not divine, tried to get up the conversation, and he started various subjects, but his useless efforts gave rise to no ideas and did not bring out a word.  The Countess, with feminine tact and obeying her instincts of a woman of the world, tried to answer him two or three times, but in vain.  She could not find words, in the perplexity of her mind, and her own voice almost frightened her in the silence of the large room, where nothing else was heard except the slight sound of plates and knives and forks.

Suddenly, her husband said to her, bending forward:  “Here, amidst your children, will you swear to me that what you told me just now, is true?”