"ON WITH THE DANCE."
Bigot, a voluptuary in every sense, craved a change of pleasure. He was never satisfied long with one, however pungent. He felt it as a relief when Angelique went off like a laughing sprite upon the arm of De Pean. "I am glad to get rid of the women sometimes, and feel like a man," he said to Cadet, who sat drinking and telling stories with hilarious laughter to two or three boon companions, and indulging in the coarsest jests and broadest scandal about the ladies at the ball, as they passed by the alcove where they were seated.
The eager persistence of Angelique, in her demand for a lettre de cachet to banish the unfortunate Caroline, had wearied and somewhat disgusted Bigot.
"I would cut the throat of any man in the world for the sake of her bright eyes," said he to himself, as she gave him a parting salute with her handkerchief; "but she must not ask me to hurt that poor foolish girl at Beaumanoir. No, by St. Picot! she is hurt enough already, and I will not have Angelique tormenting her! What merciless creatures women are to one another, Cadet!" said he, aloud.
Cadet looked up with red, inflamed eyes at the remark of Bigot. He cared nothing for women himself, and never hesitated to show his contempt for the whole sex.
"Merciless creatures, do you call them, Bigot! the claws of all the cats in Caen could not match the finger-nails of a jealous woman-- still less her biting tongue."
Angelique des Meloises swept past the two in a storm of music, as if in defiance of their sage criticisms. Her hand rested on the shoulder of the Chevalier de Pean. She had an object which made her endure it, and her dissimulation was perfect. Her eyes transfixed his with their dazzling look. Her lips were wreathed in smiles; she talked continually as she danced, and with an inconsistency which did not seem strange in her, was lamenting the absence from the ball of Le Gardeur de Repentigny.
"Chevalier," said she, in reply to some gallantry of her partner, "most women take pride in making sacrifices of themselves; I prefer to sacrifice my admirers. I like a man, not in the measure of what I do for him, but what he will do for me. Is not that a candid avowal, Chevalier? You like frankness, you know."
Frankness and the Chevalier de Pean were unknown quantities together; but he was desperately smitten, and would bear any amount of snubbing from Angelique.
"You have something in your mind you wish me to do," replied he, eagerly. "I would poison my grandmother, if you asked me, for the reward you could give me."
"Yes, I have something in my mind, Chevalier, but not concerning your grandmother. Tell me why you allowed Le Gardeur de Repentigny to leave the city?"
"I did not allow him to leave the city," said he, twitching his ugly features, for he disliked the interest she expressed in Le Gardeur.
"I would fain have kept him here if I could. The Intendant, too, had desperate need of him. It was his sister and Colonel Philibert who spirited him away from us."
"Well, a ball in Quebec is not worth twisting a curl for in the absence of Le Gardeur de Repentigny!" replied she. "You shall promise me to bring him back to the city, Chevalier, or I will dance with you no more."
Angelique laughed so gaily as she said this that a stranger would have interpreted her words as all jest.
"She means it, nevertheless," thought the Chevalier. "I will promise my best endeavor, Mademoiselle," said he, setting hard his teeth, with a grimace of dissatisfaction which did not escape the eye of Angelique; "moreover, the Intendant desires his return on affairs of the Grand Company, and has sent more than one message to him already, to urge his return."
"A fig for the Grand Company! Remember, it is I desire his return; and it is my command, not the Intendant's, which you are bound, as a gallant gentleman, to obey." Angelique would have no divided allegiance, and the man who claimed her favors must give himself up, body and soul, without thought of redemption.
She felt very reckless and very wilful at this moment. The laughter on her lips was the ebullition of a hot and angry heart, not the play of a joyous, happy spirit. Bigot's refusal of a lettre de cachet had stung her pride to the quick, and excited a feeling of resentment which found its expression in the wish for the return of Le Gardeur.
"Why do you desire the return of Le Gardeur?" asked De Pean, hesitatingly. Angelique was often too frank by half, and questioners got from her more than they liked to hear.
"Because he was my first admirer, and I never forget a true friend, Chevalier," replied she, with an undertone of fond regret in her voice.
"But he will not be your last admirer," replied De Pean, with what he considered a seductive leer, which made her laugh at him. "In the kingdom of love, as in the kingdom of heaven, the last shall be first and the first last. May I be the last, Mademoiselle?"
"You will certainly be the last, De Pean; I promise that."
Angelique laughed provokingly. She saw the eye of the Intendant watching her. She began to think he remained longer in the society of Cadet than was due to herself.
"Thanks, Mademoiselle," said De Pean, hardly knowing whether her laugh was affirmative or negative; "but I envy Le Gardeur his precedence."
Angelique's love for Le Gardeur was the only key which ever unlocked her real feelings. When the fox praised the raven's voice and prevailed on her to sing, he did not more surely make her drop the envied morsel out of her mouth than did Angelique drop the mystification she had worn so coquettishly before De Pean.
"Tell me, De Pean," said she, "is it true or not that Le Gardeur de Repentigny is consoling himself among the woods of Tilly with a fair cousin of his, Heloise de Lotbiniere?"
De Pean had his revenge, and he took it. "It is true; and no wonder," said he. "They say Heloise is, without exception, the sweetest girl in New France, if not one of the handsomest."