CHAPTER XVII

LIGHTNING FROM A CLEAR SKY

Madame de Camors had closed her eyes to conceal her tears. She opened
them at the instant Vautrot seized her hand and called her "Poor angel!"

Seeing the man on his knees, she could not comprehend it, and only
exclaimed, simply:

"Are you mad, Vautrot?"

"Yes, I am mad!" Vautrot threw his hair back with a romantic gesture
common to him, and, as he believed, to the poets-"Yes, I am mad with love
and with pity, for I see your sufferings, pure and noble victim!"

The Countess only stared in blank astonishment.

"Repose yourself with confidence," he continued, "on a heart that will be
devoted to you until death--a heart into which your tears now penetrate
to its most sacred depths!"

The Countess did not wish her tears to penetrate to such a distance, so
she dried them.

A man on his knees before a woman he adores must appear to her either
sublime or ridiculous. Unfortunately, the attitude of Vautrot, at once
theatrical and awkward, did not seem sublime to the Countess. To her
lively imagination it was irresistibly ludicrous. A bright gleam of