Yesterday, Hyacinthe positively promised me that he would come." There lay her new caprice.

If her passion for chemistry was giving way to a budding taste for decadent, symbolical verse, it was because one evening, whilst discussing Occultism with Hyacinthe, she had discovered an extraordinary beauty in him: the astral beauty of Nero's wandering soul! At least, said she, the signs of it were certain.
And all at once she quitted Pierre: "Ah, at last!" she cried, feeling relieved and happy.

Then she darted forward: Hyacinthe was coming in with his sister Camille.
On the very threshold, however, he had just met the friend on whose account he was there, young Lord George Eldrett, a pale and languid stripling with the hair of a girl; and he scarcely condescended to notice the tender greeting of Rosemonde, for he professed to regard woman as an impure and degrading creature.

Distressed by such coldness, she followed the two young men, returning in their rear into the reeking, blinding furnace of the drawing-room.
Massot, however, had been obliging enough to stop Camille and bring her to Pierre, who at the first words they exchanged relapsed into despair.
"What, mademoiselle, has not madame your mother accompanied you here ?" The girl, clad according to her wont in a dark gown, this time of peacock-blue, was nervous, with wicked eyes and sibilant voice.

And as she ragefully drew up her little figure, her deformity, her left shoulder higher than the right one, became more apparent than ever.