CHAPTER XLVIII

"Urania, I beseech you, help me!"

"What is it?"

"Come with me...."

She had seized Urania by the hand and dragged her away from De Breuil into one of the deserted rooms. The suite of rooms was almost entirely deserted; the dense throng of guests stood packed along the sides of the great ball-room to watch the pavane.

"What is it, Cornélie?"

Cornélie was trembling in every limb and clutching Urania's arm. She drew her to the farthest comer of the room. There was no one there.

"Urania," she entreated, in a supreme crisis of nervousness, "help me! What am I to do? I have met him unexpectedly. Don't you know whom I mean? My husband. My divorced husband. I had seen him once or twice before, in the street and on the Jetée. The time when I was so startled, you know, when I almost fainted: that was because of him. And he has been talking to me now, here, a moment ago. And I'm afraid of him. He spoke quite nicely, said he wanted to talk to me. It was so strange. Everything was finished between us. We were divorced. And suddenly I meet him and he speaks to me and asks me what sort of time I have had, tells me that I am looking well, that I have grown beautiful. Tell me, Urania, what I am to do. I'm frightened. I'm ill with anxiety. I want to get away. I should like best to go away at once, to Florence, to Duco. I am so frightened, Urania I want to go to my room. Tell Mrs. Uxeley that I want to go to my room."

She hardly knew what she was saying. The words fell incoherently from her lips, as in a fever. Men's voices approached. They were those of Gilio, De Breuil, the Duke of Luca and the young journalists, the two who were pushing their way into society.

"What is the Signora de Retz doing?" asked the duke. "We are missing her everywhere."

And the young journalists, standing in the shadow of these eminent noblemen, confirmed the statement: they had been missing her everywhere.

"Fetch Mrs. Uxeley here," Urania whispered to Gilio. "Cornélie is ill, I think. I can't leave her here alone. She wants to go to her room. It's better that Mrs. Uxeley should know, else she might be angry."

Cornélie was jesting nervously, in feverish gaiety, with the duke and with De Breuil and the journalists.

"Would you rather I took you straight to Mrs. Uxeley?" Gilio whispered.

"I want to go to my room!" she whispered, in a voice of entreaty, behind her fan.

The pavane appeared to be over. The buzz of voices reached them, as though the guests were scattering about the rooms again.

"I see Mrs. Uxeley," said Gilio.

He went up to her, spoke to her. She simpered at first, leaning on the gold knob of her cane. Then her wrinkles became angrily contracted. She crossed the room. Cornélie went on jesting with the duke; the journalists thought every word witty.

"Aren't you well?" whispered Mrs. Uxeley, going up to her, ruffled. "What about the cotillon?"

"I will see to everything, Mrs. Uxeley," said Urania.

"Impossible, dear princess; and I shouldn't dream of letting you either."

"Introduce me to your friend, Cornélie," said a deep voice behind Cornélie.

She felt that voice like bronze inside her body. She turned round automatically. It was he. She seemed unable to escape him. And, under his glance, as though hypnotized, she appeared, very strangely, to recover her strength. It seemed as though he were willing her not to be