But, Beatrix, I will tell you this: in case I am
abandoned, my choice is made."
"What is it?" cried Beatrix, with an eagerness that made Camille
shudder.
The two friends looked at each other with the keen attention of
Venetian inquisitors; their souls clashed in that rapid glance, and
struck fire like flints. The marquise lowered her eyes.
"After man, there is nought but God," said the celebrated woman. "God
is the Unknown. I shall fling myself into that as into some vast
abyss. Calyste has sworn to me that he admires you only as he would a
picture; but alas! you are but twenty-eight, in the full magnificence
of your beauty. The struggle thus begins between him and me by
falsehood. But I have one support; happily I know a means to keep him
true to me, and I shall triumph."
"What means?"
"That is my secret, dear. Let me have the benefits of my age. If
Claude Vignon, as Conti has doubtless told you, flings me back into
the gulf, I, who had climbed to a rock which I thought inaccessible,
--I will at least gather the pale and fragile, but delightful flowers
that grow in its depths.
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