Perhaps someone
had seen him with the Baroness Decker, at whose house at Viroflay he
sometimes spent a day or so. Vandeuvres's sole vengeance was an abrupt
question:
"Tell me, where have you been straying to? Your elbow is covered with
cobwebs and plaster."
"My elbow," he muttered, slightly disturbed. "Yes indeed, it's true.
A speck or two, I must have come in for them on my way down from my
office."
Several people were taking their departure. It was close on midnight.
Two footmen were noiselessly removing the empty cups and the plates with
cakes. In front of the hearth the ladies had re-formed and, at the
same time, narrowed their circle and were chatting more carelessly than
before in the languid atmosphere peculiar to the close of a party. The
very room was going to sleep, and slowly creeping shadows were cast by
its walls. It was then Fauchery spoke of departure. Yet he once more
forgot his intention at sight of the Countess Sabine. She was resting
from her cares as hostess, and as she sat in her wonted seat, silent,
her eyes fixed on a log which was turning into embers, her face appeared
so white and so impassable that doubt again possessed him. In the glow
of the fire the small black hairs on the mole at the corner of her lip
became white.
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