_ CHAPTER XL. TWO AMBITIONS THAT WISH TO PASS FOR TWO LOVES
When Jeanne returned to her pretty little house in the faubourg, it was still early; so she took a pen and wrote a few rapid lines, enclosed them in a perfumed envelope, and rang the bell. "Take this letter to Monseigneur the Cardinal de Rohan," said she.
In five minutes the man returned.
"Well," said Madame de la Motte, impatiently, "why are you not gone?"
"Just as I left the house, madame, his eminence came to the door. I told him I was about to go to his hotel with a letter from you; he read it, and is now waiting to come in."
"Let him enter," said the countess.
Jeanne had been thinking all the way home of the beautiful necklace, and wishing it was hers. It would be a fortune in itself.
The cardinal entered. He also was full of desires and ambitions, which he wished to hide under the mask of love.
"Ah, dear Jeanne," said he, "you have really become so necessary to me that I have been gloomy all day knowing you to be so far off. But you have returned from Versailles?"
"As you see, monseigneur."
"And content?"
"Enchanted."
"The queen received you, then?"
"I was introduced immediately on my arrival."
"You were fortunate. I suppose, from your triumphant air, that she spoke to you."
"I passed three hours in her majesty's cabinet."
"Three hours! You are really an enchantress whom no one can resist. But perhaps you exaggerate. Three hours!" he repeated; "how many things a clever woman like you might say in three hours!"
"Oh, I assure you, monseigneur, that I did not waste my time."
"I dare say that in the whole three hours you did not once think of me."
"Ungrateful man!"
"Really!" cried the cardinal.
"I did more than think of you; I spoke of you."
"Spoke of me! to whom?" asked the prelate, in a voice from which all his power over himself could not banish some emotion.
"To whom should it be but to the queen?"
"Ah, dear countess, tell me about it. I interest myself so much in all that concerns you, that I should like to hear the most minute details."
Jeanne smiled. She knew what interested the cardinal as well as he did himself. Then she related to him all the circumstances which had so fortunately made her, from a stranger, almost the friend and confidant of the queen.
Scarcely had she finished, when the servant entered to announce supper.
Jeanne invited the cardinal to accompany her.
He gave her his arm, and they went in together.
During supper, the cardinal continued to drink in long draughts of love and hope from the recitals which Jeanne kept making to him from time to time. He remarked also, with surprise, that, instead of making herself sought like a woman that knows that you have need of her, she had thrown off all her former pride, and only seemed anxious to please him. She did the honors of her table as if she had all her life mixed in the highest circles; there was neither awkwardness nor embarrassment.
"Countess," said he at length, "there are two women in you."
"How so?"
"One of yesterday, and another of to-day."
"And which does your excellency prefer?"
"I do not know, but at least the one of this evening is a Circe--a something irresistible."
"And which you will not attempt to resist, I hope, prince as you are."
The cardinal imprinted a long kiss on her hand. _