d'Ormesson and madame's footman.
The Countess looked up and saw him as he was driven past. Her face
lighted; almost it seemed to him she was about to greet him or to
call him, wherefore, to avoid a difficulty, arising out of the
presence there of his late antagonist, he anticipated her by bowing
frigidly - for his mood was frigid, the more frigid by virtue of
what he saw - and then resumed his seat with eyes that looked
deliberately ahead.
Could anything more completely have confirmed him in his conviction
that it was on M. de La Tour d'Azyr's account that Aline had come
to plead with him that morning? For what his eyes had seen, of
course, was a lady overcome with emotion at the sight of blood of
her dear friend, and that same dear friend restoring her with
assurances that his hurt was very far from mortal. Later, much
later, he was to blame his own perverse stupidity. Almost is he
too severe in his self-condemnation. For how else could he have
interpreted the scene he beheld, his preconceptions being what
they were?
That which he had already been suspecting, he now accounted proven
to him.
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