"I am about to retire. Your highness has expressed to me your will, and I
have told you mine. It is enough."

She took her hat. Madame de Saint-Dizier, seeing her prey about to
escape, hastened towards her niece, and, in defiance of all propriety,
seized her violently by the arm with a convulsive grasp, and bade her,
"Remain!"

"Fie, madame!" exclaimed Adrienne, with an accent of painful contempt,
"have we sunk so low?"

"You wish to escape--you are afraid!" resumed Madame de Saint-Dizier,
looking at her disdainfully from head to foot.

With these words "you are afraid," you could have made Adrienne de
Cardoville walk into a fiery furnace. Disengaging her arm from her aunt's
grasp, with a gesture full of nobleness and pride, she threw down the hat
upon the chair, and returning to the table, said imperiously to the
princess: "There is something even stronger than the disgust with which
all this inspires me--the fear of being accused of cowardice. Go on,
madame! I am listening!"

With her head raised, her color somewhat heightened, her glance half
veiled by a tear of indignation, her arms folded over her bosom, which
heaved in spite of herself with deep emotion, and her little foot beating
convulsively on the carpet, Adrienne looked steadily at her aunt. The
princess wished to infuse drop by drop, the poison with which she was
swelling, and make her victim suffer as long as possible, feeling certain
that she could not escape. "Gentlemen," said Madame de Saint-Dizier, in a
forced voice, "this has occurred: I was told that the commissary of