Madame Steinbock's was almost red, and she would be
in every point unlike her. This new effect gave her a piquant and
strange appearance, which puzzled her followers so much, that Montes
asked her:
"What have you done to yourself this evening?"--Then she put on a
rather wide black velvet neck-ribbon, which showed off the whiteness
of her skin. One patch took the place of the _assassine_ of our
grandmothers. And Valerie pinned the sweetest rosebud into her bodice,
just in the middle above the stay-busk, and in the daintiest little
hollow! It was enough to make every man under thirty drop his eyelids.
"I am as sweet as a sugar-plum," said she to herself, going through
her attitudes before the glass, exactly as a dancer practises her
curtesies.
Lisbeth had been to market, and the dinner was to be one of those
superfine meals which Mathurine had been wont to cook for her Bishop
when he entertained the prelate of the adjoining diocese.
Stidmann, Claude Vignon, and Count Steinbock arrived almost together,
just at six. An ordinary, or, if you will, a natural woman would have
hastened at the announcement of a name so eagerly longed for; but
Valerie, though ready since five o'clock, remained in her room,
leaving her three guests together, certain that she was the subject of
their conversation or of their secret thoughts.
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