Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

90 THE DREAMS OF A SUMMER DAY. ‘Then you love this Suzanne?’’ said she, with a slight trembling of the voice. A sudden blush covered Belle-Rose’s cheeks. ‘‘Have I named her?’’ he exclaimed. ‘‘Oh, madame, par- don my delirium.”’ ‘‘Hh! monsieur, 1 do not ask you for excuses, but an avowal.’’ With anger, the sonorousness of her voice had returned. Lightning flashed in the duchess’ eyes, and her nostrils quivered. Belle-Rose, half raised upon his elbow, gazed at her for a minute; calm and serene before this ill-re- strained anger, he said, with the simplicity of a Christian confessing his faith: ‘‘Yes, madame, I love her.’’ The eyes of the duchess were lowered under the glance of Belle-Rose; she let her head fall upon her breast, and if the doubtful light of the room had permitted the wounded young man to gaze upon that bowed face, he would have seen a tear glide over her cheek like a drop of dew over polished marble. ‘‘Is she your betrothed?’’ said she, in a voice so weak that it passed like a murmur between the pale and trem- bling lips. ‘*No,’’ said Belle-Rose, sadly, ‘‘she is a friend whom I have lost.’’ The duchess’ glance was illuminated by a brilliant ray; then, with her forehead supported on her hand, she kept silent. 'The Duchesse de Chateaufort was then in all the splendor of her beauty. Tall, slender, with an admirably formed waist, her whole person offereda happy mixture of grace and dignity; she possessed naturally that easy walk, that noble carriage, and that grand air for which the ladies of the court of Louis XIV. were renowned through all Europe. The warmth of the Spanish blood, which she derived from her mother, was betrayed in the humid sparkle of her limpid and radiant eyes, in the mute appeal of her purple lips, in the undulating movements of her supple body, in the caresses of her voice filled with pure and velvety sounds. Madame de Chateaufort trans- formed herself like a fairy, and under the great lady often shone the enchantress. She knew how to give her mouth, of a proud and disdainful contour, the suave outline of an ingenuous smile; the pale transparence of her cheeks, of her neck, of her shoulders, was at times illuminated by rosy tints, as reddens the snow under a kiss from the sun. This divine statue grew animated under the lightning of (E(0) micooo S {