"Pray go on. To what am I
indebted for the honour of this visit?"
Madame Jumel rose and swept up and down the long room twice. "Can there
be anything in that tale of royal blood?" thought Hamilton. "Or in that
other tale of equally distinguished parentage?"
She had paused with her back to him, facing one of the bookcases.
"Classics, classics, classics!" she exclaimed, in a voice which grew
steadier as she proceeded. "That was the only taste we did not share.
Don Quixote in Spanish, Dante and Alfieri in Italian; and all the German
brutes. Ah! Voltaire! Rousseau! What superb editions! No one can bind
but the French. And the dear old _Moniteur_--all bound for posterity,
which will never look at it."
She returned and stood before him, and she was quite composed.
"I came to tell you," she said, "that when you die, it will be by the
hand of my deputy. I tell you because I am determined that your last
earthly thought shall be of me."
"_Cherchez la femme--toujours!_ Why are you doing this?" he asked
curiously. "You no longer love me, and your hate should have worn out
long since.
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