She was ready to go
through fire and water to reach that goal of her ambition. But if
she gave the Intendant her hand it was enough; it was all she could
give him, but not the smallest corner of her heart, which she
acknowledged to herself belonged only to Le Gardeur de Repentigny.
While bent on accomplishing this scheme by every means in her power,
and which involved necessarily the ruin of Le Gardeur, she took a
sort of perverse pride in enumerating the hundred points of personal
and moral superiority possessed by him over the Intendant and all
others of her admirers. If she sacrificed her love to her ambition,
hating herself while she did so, it was a sort of satisfaction to
think that Le Gardeur's sacrifice was not less complete than her
own; and she rather felt pleased with the reflection that his heart
would be broken, and no other woman would ever fill that place in
his affections which she had once occupied.
The days that elapsed after their final interview were days of
vexation to Angelique. She was angry with herself, almost; angry
with Le Gardeur that he had taken her at her word, and still more
angry that she did not reap the immediate reward of her treachery
against her own heart.
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