Women like to perform
prodigies, break rocks, and soften natures which seem of iron.
Raoul's moral costume was therefore in keeping with his clothes. He
was fitted to be what he became to the Eve who was bored in her
paradise in the rue du Rocher,--the fascinating serpent, the fine
talker with magnetic eyes and harmonious motions who tempted the first
woman. No sooner had the Comtesse Marie laid eyes on Raoul than she
felt an inward emotion, the violence of which caused her a species of
terror. The glance of that fraudulent great man exercised a physical
influence upon her, which quivered in her very heart, and troubled it.
But the trouble was pleasure. The purple mantle which celebrity had
draped for a moment round Nathan's shoulders dazzled the ingenuous
young woman. When tea was served, she rose from her seat among a knot
of talking women, where she had been striving to see and hear that
extraordinary being. Her silence and absorption were noticed by her
false friends.
The countess approached the divan in the centre of the room, where
Raoul was perorating. She stood there with her arm in that of Madame
Octave de Camp, an excellent woman, who kept the secret of the
involuntary trembling by which these violent emotions betrayed
themselves. Though the eyes of a captivated woman are apt to shed
wonderful sweetness, Raoul was too occupied at that moment in letting
off fireworks, too absorbed in his epigrams going up like rockets (in
the midst of which were flaming portraits drawn in lines of fire) to
notice the naive admiration of one little Eve concealed in a group of
women.
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