"
With a gesture of infinite sorrow, Madame Mathis discreetly withdrew. She
was quite ignorant of her son's doings, but fate had pursued her so
relentlessly that she ever trembled.
"I don't think that the poor woman has much to expect from her son," said
Pierre, when she had gone. "I only saw him once, but the gleam in his
eyes was as harsh and trenchant as that of a knife."
"Do you think so?" the old priest exclaimed, with his kindly /naivete/.
"Well, he seemed to me very polite, perhaps a trifle eager to enjoy life;
but then, all the young folks are impatient nowadays. Come, let us sit
down to table, for the soup will be cold."
Almost at the same hour, on the other side of Paris, night had in like
fashion slowly fallen in the drawing-room of the Countess de Quinsac, on
the dismal, silent ground-floor of an old mansion in the Rue St.
Dominique. The Countess was there, alone with her faithful friend, the
Marquis de Morigny, she on one side, and he on the other side of the
chimney-piece, where the last embers of the wood fire were dying out. The
servant had not yet brought the lamp, and the Countess refrained from
ringing, finding some relief from her anxiety in the falling darkness,
which hid from view all the unconfessed thoughts that she was afraid of
showing on her weary face.
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