A few moments later the three masks, driven rapidly by the Vandenesse
coachman, reached Florine's house. As soon as she had entered her own
apartments the actress unmasked. Madame de Vandenesse could not
restrain a quiver of surprise at Florine's beauty as she stood there
choking with anger, and superb in her wrath and jealousy.
"There is, somewhere in these rooms," said Vandenesse, "a portfolio,
the key of which you have never had; the letters are probably in it."
"Well, well, for once in my life I am bewildered; you know something
that I have been uneasy about for some days," cried Florine, rushing
into the study in search of the portfolio.
Vandenesse saw that his wife was turning pale beneath her mask.
Florine's apartment revealed more about the intimacy of the actress
and Nathan than any ideal mistress would wish to know. The eye of a
woman can take in the truth of such things in a second, and the
countess saw vestiges of Nathan which proved to her the certainty of
what Vandenesse had said. Florine returned with the portfolio.
"How am I to open it?" she said.
The actress rang the bell and sent into the kitchen for the cook's
knife. When it came she brandished it in the air, crying out in
ironical tones:--
"With this they cut the necks of 'poulets.'"
The words, which made the countess shiver, explained to her, even
better than her husband had done the night before, the depths of the
abyss into which she had so nearly fallen.
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