Aulaire, who knelt before her, his lute fallen at his side. The rose
which she had worn in her hair had escaped from its diamond loop and lay
upon the ground; the delicate gaze d'or of her dress was torn and
crushed.
For an instant Calvert stood in the shadow of one of the Grecian columns
and looked at the scene before him in sick amazement. So it was to
Adrienne that St. Aulaire was singing love-songs in this isolated spot
at midnight! As he hesitated, Monsieur de St. Aulaire rose from his
knees.
"You did not always treat me with such contempt, Madame," he said, with
a mocking laugh, "and by God, I have no mind to stand it now," and,
putting one arm around her quivering shoulders and crushing in his the
hand with which she would have pushed him from her, he leaned lightly
over to kiss her.
As he did so, Calvert stepped quietly forward ('twas wonderful how,
though he always seemed to move slowly, he was ever in the right place
at the right time) and, seizing St. Aulaire by the collar, hurled him
backward with such force that he fell heavily against one of the
gleaming marble columns and lay, for an instant, stunned and motionless.
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