Count Hannibal waited motionless until no more than half a dozen groups
remained in the open. Then he gave the word to dismount; for, so far,
even the Countess and her women had kept their saddles, lest the movement
which their retreat into the inn must have caused should be misread by
the mob. Last of all he dismounted himself, and with lights going before
him and behind, and preceded by Bigot, bearing his cloak and pistols, he
escorted the Countess into the house. Not many minutes had elapsed since
he had called for silence; but long before he reached the chamber looking
over the square from the first floor, in which supper was being set for
them, the news had flown through the length and breadth of Angers that
for this night the danger was past. The hawk had come to Angers, and lo!
it was a dove.
Count Hannibal strode to one of the open windows and looked out. In the
room, which was well lighted, were people of the house, going to and fro,
setting out the table; to Madame, standing beside the hearth--which held
its summer dressing of green boughs--while her woman held water for her
to wash, the scene recalled with painful vividness the meal at which she
had been present on the morning of the St. Bartholomew--the meal which
had ushered in her troubles. Naturally her eyes went to her husband, her
mind to the horror in which she had held him then; and with a kind of
shock--perhaps because the last few minutes had shown him in a new
light--she compared her old opinion of him with that which, much as she
feared him, she now entertained.
This afternoon, if ever, within the last few hours, if at all, he had
acted in a way to justify that horror and that opinion. He had treated
her--brutally; he had insulted and threatened her, had almost struck her.
And yet--and yet Madame felt that she had moved so far from the point
which she had once occupied that the old attitude was hard to understand.
Hardly could she believe that it was on this man, much as she still
dreaded him, that she had looked with those feelings of repulsion.
She was still gazing at him with eyes which strove to see two men in one,
when he turned from the window. Absorbed in thought, she had forgotten
her occupation, and stood, the towel suspended in her half-dried hands.
Before she knew what he was doing he was at her side; he bade the woman
hold the bowl, and he rinsed his hands. Then he turned, and without
looking at the Countess, he dried his hands on the farther end of the
towel which she was still using.
She blushed faintly. A something in the act, more intimate and more
familiar than had ever marked their intercourse, set her blood running
strangely. When he turned away and bade Bigot unbuckle his
spur-leathers, she stepped forward.