Inside the house once more, Madelinette laid her hand upon Louis' arm
with a smile that wholly deceived him for a moment. He thought now that
she must have known of his deformity before she came--the world was so
full of tale-bearers--and no doubt had long since reconciled herself to
the painful fact. She had shown no surprise, no shrinking. There had
been only the one lightning instant in which he had felt a kind of
suspension of her breath and being, but when he had looked her in the
face, she was composed and smiling. After all his frightened
anticipation the great moment had come and gone without tragedy. With
satisfaction he looked in the mirror in the hall as they passed inside
the house. He saw no reason to quarrel with his face. Was it possible
that the deformity did not matter after all?

He felt Madelinette's hand on his arm. He turned and clasped her to his
breast.

He did not notice that she kept her hands under her chin as he drew her
to him, that she did not, as had been her wont, put them on his
shoulders. He did not feel her shrink, and no one, seeing, could have
said that she shrank from him in ever so little.

"How beautiful you are!" he said, as he looked into her face.

"How glad I am to be here again, and how tired I am, Louis!" she said.
"I've driven thirty miles since daylight." She disengaged herself. "I
am going to sleep now," she added. "I am going to turn the key in my
door till evening. Please tell Madame Marie so, Louis."

Inside her room alone she flung herself on her bed in agony and despair.