Dudley, whom nothing escaped, aided this tete-a-tete by throwing the
Comte de Vandenesse with Madame de Manerville. Strong in her former
ascendancy over him, Natalie de Manerville amused herself by leading
Felix into the mazes of a quarrel of witty teasing, blushing
half-confidences, regrets coyly flung like flowers at his feet,
recriminations in which she excused herself for the sole purpose of
being put in the wrong.

These former lovers were speaking to each other for the first time
since their rupture; and while her husband's former love was stirring
the embers to see if a spark were yet alive, Madame Felix de
Vandenesse was undergoing those violent palpitations which a woman
feels at the certainty of doing wrong, and stepping on forbidden
ground,--emotions that are not without charm, and which awaken various
dormant faculties. Women are fond of using Bluebeard's bloody key,
that fine mythological idea for which we are indebted to Perrault.

The dramatist--who knew his Shakespeare--displayed his wretchedness,
related his struggle with men and things, made his hearer aware of his
baseless grandeur, his unrecognized political genius, his life without
noble affections. Without saying a single definite word, he contrived
to suggest to this charming woman that she should play the noble part
of Rebecca in Ivanhoe, and love and protect him. It was all, of
course, in the ethereal regions of sentiment. Forget-me-nots are not
more blue, lilies not more white than the images, thoughts, and
radiantly illumined brow of this accomplished artist, who was likely
to send his conversation to a publisher. He played his part of reptile
to this poor Eve so cleverly, he made the fatal bloom of the apple so
dazzling to her eyes, that Marie left the ball-room filled with that
species of remorse which resembles hope, flattered in all her