ar
Antoinette, I wield a more absolute power than the Autocrat of all the
Russias. I have a compact with Fate; I can advance or retard destiny,
so far as men are concerned, at my fancy, as you alter the hands of a
watch. If you can direct the course of fate in our political machinery,
it simply means (does it not?) that you understand the ins and outs of
it. You shall be free before very long, and then you must remember your
promise."

"Armand!" she cried. "What do you mean? Great heavens! Can you imagine
that I am to be the prize of a crime? Do you want to kill me? Why! you
cannot have any religion in you! For my own part, I fear God. M. de
Langeais may have given me reason to hate him, but I wish him no manner
of harm."

M. de Montriveau beat a tattoo on the marble chimney-piece, and only
looked composedly at the lady.

"Dear," continued she, "respect him. He does not love me, he is not kind
to me, but I have duties to fulfil with regard to him. What would I not
do to avert the calamities with which you threaten him?--Listen," she
continued after a pause, "I will not say another word about separation;
you shall come here as in the past, and I will still give you my
forehead to kiss. If I refused once or twice, it was pure coquetry,
indeed it was. But let us understand each other," she added as he came
closer. "You will permit me to add to the number of my satellites; to
receive even more visitors in the morning than heretofore; I mean to be
twice as frivolous; I mean to use you to all appearance very badly;
to feign a rupture; you must come not quite so often, and then,
afterwards----"

While she spoke, she had allowed him to put an arm about her waist,
Montriveau was holding her tightly to him, and she seemed to feel the
exceeding pleasure that women usually feel in that close contact, an
earnest of the bliss of a closer union. And then, doubtless she meant to
elicit some confidence, for she raised herself on tiptoe, and laid her
forehead against Armand's burning lips.

"And then," Montriveau finished her sentence for her, "you shall not
speak to me of your husband. You ought not to think of him again."

Mme de Langeais was silent awhile.

"At least," she said, after a significant pause, "at least you will do
all that I wish without grumbling, you will not be naughty; tell me so,
my friend? You wanted to frighten me, did you not? Come, now, confess
it?... You are too good ever to think of crimes. But is it p