to the father of her other son-in-law, the Marquis de Latour-Yvelin, aged seventy-two. She did not walk, she dragged herself along, ready to faint at each forward movement. It could be felt that her feet stuck to the flagstones, that her legs refused to advance, and that her heart was beating within her breast like an animal bounding to escape. She had grown thin. Her white hair made her face appear still more blanched and her cheeks hollower. She looked straight before her in order not to see any one—in order not to recall, perhaps, that which was torturing her.
Then George Du Roy appeared with an old lady unknown. He, too, kept his head up without turning aside his eyes, fixed and stern under his slightly bent brows. His moustache seemed to bristle on his lip. He was set down as a very good-looking fellow. He had a proud bearing, a good figure, and a straight leg. He wore his clothes well, the little red ribbon of the Legion of Honor showing like a drop of blood on his dress coat.
Then came