But Angelique felt
that the admiration of the Intendant was not of that kind which had
driven so many men mad for her sake. She knew Bigot would never go
mad for her, much as he was fascinated! and why? why?
Angelique, while listening to his honeyed flatteries as he led her
gaily through the ballroom, asked herself again and again, why did
he carefully avoid the one topic that filled her thoughts, or spoke
of it only in his mocking manner, which tortured her to madness with
doubt and perplexity?
As she leaned on the arm of the courtly Intendant, laughing like one
possessed with the very spirit of gaiety at his sallies and jests,
her mind was torn with bitter comparisons as she remembered Le
Gardeur, his handsome face and his transparent admiration, so full
of love and ready for any sacrifice for her sake,--and she had cast
it all away for this inscrutable voluptuary, a man who had no
respect for women, but who admired her person, condescended to be
pleased with it, and affected to be caught by the lures she held out
to him, but which she felt would be of no more avail to hold him
fast than the threads which a spider throws from bush to bush on a
summer morn will hold fast a bird which flies athwart them!
The gayest of the gay to all outward appearance, Angelique missed
sorely the presence of Le Gardeur, and she resented his absence from
the ball as a slight and a wrong to her sovereignty, which never
released a lover from his allegiance.
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