"I will take them to the ball," said she, "and if Madame de Parabére asks for them, why, in common politeness, she must have them. But mask or no mask, I will take care to let her know who I am!"
"Better not," said the more cautious Abbé, and would have explained why, but the Marquise paid no attention to what he said. She seemed uneasy, and moved behind the window-curtain with a nervous gesture and a rising colour in her cheek. "Another complication," muttered her companion, catching once more the measured boot-tramp on the gravel-walk. "So be it! The more cards dealt, the better chance for the player who can peep at his adversary's hand!"
Looking into the garden, he perceived the Musketeer's tall figure moving leisurely along the walk. His pace became slower and slower, and the Marquise, behind the curtain, blushed deeper and deeper as he came directly below the window, peering up at the house with an air of caution, not lost on Malletort's observation.
"I will force one of them to play a court card," thought the Abbé, and muttering something about "stifling heat," pushed the window noisily, as far open as it would go.
The Musketeer looked quickly up, and at the same moment something white and buoyant fluttered lightly to the ground at his very feet.
The Marquise was trembling and blushing behind her window-curtain.
The ruffles at Malletort's wrist had brushed a cluster of blossoms from the stephanotis, and it fell within six inches of Captain George's boot.
He picked it up with a murmur of delight. In another moment he would have pressed it to his lips, but the Marquise could keep silence no longer. Shrouding herself in the window-curtain, she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, "Hold! Monsieur, in Heaven's name! It is poisoned!"
He cast a rapid penetrating glance, up, down, all round. His monitress was invisible, and the Abbé had shrunk back into the room. Then he examined the blossoms minutely, though at arm's-length, holding them in his gloved hand, and so twirling them carelessly about, as if to avoid observation, went on a few paces, ere he threw them on the
