Angelique-Louise de Guerchi was a woman of about twenty-eight years of age, tall, dark, and well made.  The loose life she had led had, it is true, somewhat staled her beauty, marred the delicacy of her complexion, and coarsened the naturally elegant curves of her figure; but it is such women who from time immemorial have had the strongest attraction for profligate men.  It seems as if dissipation destroyed the power to perceive true beauty, and the man of pleasure must be aroused to admiration by a bold glance and a meaning smile, and will only seek satisfaction along the trail left by vice.  Louise-Angelique was admirably adapted for her way of life; not that her features wore an expression of shameless effrontery, or that the words that passed her lips bore habitual testimony to the disorders of her existence, but that under a calm and sedate demeanour there lurked a secret and indefinable charm.  Many other women possessed more regular features, but none of them had a greater power of seduction.  We must add that she owed that power entirely to her physical perfections, for except in regard to the devices necessary to her calling, she showed no cleverness, being ignorant, dull and without inner resources of any kind.  As her temperament led her to share the desires she excited, she was really incapable of resisting an attack conducted with skill and ardour, and if the Duc de Vitry had not been so madly in love, which is the same as saying that he was hopelessly blind, silly, and dense to everything around him, he might have found a score of opportunities to overcome her resistance.  We have already seen that she was so straitened in money matters that she had been driven to try to sell her jewels that very, morning.

Jeannin was the first to ’break silence.

“You are astonished at my visit, I know, my charming Angelique.  But you must excuse my thus appearing so unexpectedly before you.  The truth is, I found it impossible to leave Paris without seeing you once more.”

“Thank you for your kind remembrance,” said she, “but I did not at all expect it.”

“Come, come, you are offended with me.”

She gave him a glance of mingled disdain and resentment; but he went on, in a timid, wistful tone—­

“I know that my conduct must have seemed strange to you, and I acknowledge that nothing can justify a man for suddenly leaving the woman he loves—­I do not dare to say the woman who loves him—­without a word of explanation.  But, dear Angelique, I was jealous.”

“Jealous!” she repeated incredulously.

“I tried my best to overcome the feeling, and I hid my suspicions from you.  Twenty times I came to see you bursting with anger and determined to overwhelm you with reproaches, but at the sight of your beauty I forgot everything but that I loved you.  My suspicions dissolved before a smile; one word from your lips charmed me into happiness.  But when I was again alone my terrors revived, I saw my rivals at your feet, and rage possessed me once more.  Ah! you never knew how devotedly I loved you.”