The Intendant had come and gone every day, unchanged in his manner,
full of spirits and gallantry, and as warm in his admiration as
before; but her womanly instinct told her there was something hidden
under that gay exterior.
Bigot accepted every challenge of flirtation, and ought to have
declared himself twenty times over, but he did not. He seemed to
bring himself to the brink of an avowal only to break into her
confidence and surprise the secret she kept so desperately
concealed.
Angelique met craft by craft, duplicity by duplicity, but it began
to be clear to herself that she had met with her match, and although
the Intendant grew more pressing as a lover, she had daily less hope
of winning him as a husband.
The thought was maddening. Such a result admitted of a twofold
meaning: either he suspected her of the death of Caroline, or her
charms, which had never failed before with any man, failed now to
entangle the one man she had resolved to marry.
She cursed him in her heart while she flattered him with her tongue,
but by no art she was mistress of, neither by fondness nor by
coyness, could she extract the declaration she regarded as her due
and was indignant at not receiving.
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