He had been two hours in the salon when he heard Madame Delmare's sweet
and slightly husky voice in the adjoining room. By dint of reflecting on
his scheme of seduction he had become as passionately interested as an
author in his subject or a lawyer in his cause, and the emotion that he
felt at the sight of Indiana may be compared to that of an actor
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his rôle who finds himself in the
presence of the principal character of the drama and can no longer
distinguish artificial stage effects from reality.
She was so changed that a feeling of sincere compassion found its way
into Raymon's being, amid the nervous tremors of his brain. Unhappiness
and illness had left such deep traces on her face that she was hardly
pretty, and that he felt that there was more glory than pleasure to be
gained by the conquest. But he owed it to himself to restore this woman
to life and happiness.
Seeing how pale and sad she was, he judged that he had no very strong
will to contend against. Was it possible that such a frail envelope
could conceal great power of moral resistance?
He reflected that it was necessary first of all to interest her in
herself, to frighten her concerning her depression and her failing
health, in order the more easily to open her mind to the desire and the
hope of a better destiny.
"Indiana!" he began, with secret assurance perfectly concealed beneath
an air of profound melancholy, "to think that I should find you in such
a condition as this! I did not dream that this moment to which I have
looked forward so long, which I have sought so eagerly, would cause me
such horrible pain!"
Madame Delmare hardly anticipated this language; she expected to
surprise Raymon in the attitude of a confused and shrinking culprit; and
lo! instead of accusing himself--of telling her of his grief and
repentance--his sorrow and pity were all for her! She must be sorely
cast down and broken in spirit to inspire compassion in a man who should
have implored hers!
A French woman--a woman of the world--would not have lost her head at
such a delicate juncture; but Indiana had no tact; possessed neither the
skill nor the power of dissimulation necessary to preserve the advantage
of her position. His words brought before her eyes the whole picture of
her sufferings and tears glistened on the edge of her eyelids.
"I am ill, in truth," she said, as she seated herself, feebly and
wearily, in the chair Raymon offered her; "I feel that I am very ill,
and, in your presence, monsieur, I have the right to complain."
Raymon had not hoped to progress so fast. He seized the opportunity by
the hair, as the saying is, and, taking possession of a hand which felt
cold and dry in his, he replied:
"Indiana! do not say that; do not say that I am the cause of your
illness, for you make me mad with grief and joy."
"And joy!" she repeated, fixing upon him her great blue eyes overflowing
with melancholy and amazement.
"I should have said hope; for, if I have caused you unhappiness, madame,
I can perhaps bring it to an end. Say a word," he added, kneeling beside
her on a cushion that had fallen from the divan, "ask me for my blood,
my life!"
"Oh! hush!" said Indiana bitterly, withdrawing her hand; "you made a
shameful misuse of promises before; try to repair the evil you have
done!"
"I intend to do it; I will do it!" he cried, trying to take her hand
again.
"It is too late," she said. "Give me back my companion, my sister; give
me back Noun, my only friend!"
A cold shiver ran through Raymon's veins. This time he had no need to
encourage her emotion; there are emotions which awake unbidden, mighty
and terrible, without the aid of art.
"She knows all," he thought, "and she has judged me."
Nothing could be more humiliating to him than to be reproached for his
crime by the woman who had been his innocent accomplice; nothing more
bitter than to see Noun's rival lamenting her death.
"Yes, monsieur," said Indiana, raising her face, down which the tears
were streaming, "you were the cause--"
But she paused when she observed Raymon's pallor. It must have been most
alarming, for he had never suffered so keenly.
Thereupon all the kindness of her heart and all the involuntary emotion
which he aroused in her resumed their sway over Madame Delmare.
"Forgive me!" she said in dismay; "I hurt you terribly; I have suffered
so myself! Sit down and let us talk of something else."
This sudden manifestation of her sweet and generous nature rendered
Raymon's emotion deeper than ever. He sobbed aloud; he put Indiana's
hand to his lips and covered it with tears and kisses. It was the first
time that he had been able to weep since Noun's death, and it was
Indiana who relieved his breast of that terrible weight.
"Oh! since you, who never knew her, weep for her so freely," she said;
"since you regret so bitterly the injury you have done me, I dare not
reproach you any more. Let us weep for her together, monsieur, so that,
from her place in heaven, she may see us and forgive us."
Raymon's forehead was wet with cold perspiration. If the words _you who
never knew her_ had delivered him from painful anxiety, this appeal to
his victim's memory, in Indiana's innocent mouth, terrified him with a
superstitious terror. Sorely distressed, he rose and walked feverishly
to a window and leaned on the sill to breathe the fresh air. Indiana
remained in her chair, silent and deeply moved. She felt a sort of
secret joy on seeing Raymon weep like a child and display the weakness
of a woman.
"He is naturally kind," she murmured to herself; "he is fond of me; his
heart is warm and generous. He did wrong, but his repentance expiates
his fault, and I ought to have forgiven him sooner."
She gazed at him with a softened expression; her confidence in him had
returned. She mistook the remorse of the guilty man for the repentance
of love.
"Do not weep any more," she said, rising and walking up to him; "it was
I who killed her; I alone am guilty. This remorse will sadden my whole
life. I gave way to an impulse of suspicion and anger; I humiliated her,
wounded her to the heart. I vented upon her all my spleen against you;
it was you alone who had offended me, and I punished my poor friend for
it. I was very hard to her!"
"And to me," said Raymon, suddenly forgetting the past to think only of
the present.
Madame Delmare blushed.
"I should not perhaps have reproached you for the cruel loss I sustained
on that awful night," she said; "but I cannot forget the imprudence of
your conduct toward me. The lack of delicacy in your romantic and
culpable project wounded me very deeply. I believed then that you loved
me!--and you did not even respect me!"
Raymon recovered his strength, his determination, his love, his hopes;
the sinister presentiment, which had made his blood run cold, vanished
like a nightmare. He awoke once more, young, ardent, overflowing with
desire, with passion, and with hopes for the future.
"I am guilty if you hate me," he said, vehemently, throwing himself at
her feet; "but, if you love me, I am not guilty--I never have been. Tell
me, Indiana, do you love me?"
"Do you deserve it?" she asked.
"If, in order to deserve it," said Raymon, "I must love you to
adoration--"
"Listen to me," she said, abandoning her hands to him and fastening upon
him her great eyes, swimming in tears, wherein a sombre flame gleamed at
intervals. "Do you know what it is to love a woman like me? No, you do
not know. You thought that it was merely a matter of gratifying the
caprice of a day. You judged my heart by all the surfeited hearts over
which you have hitherto exerted your ephemeral domination. You do not
know that I have never loved as yet and that I will not give my
untouched virgin heart in exchange for a ruined, withered heart, my
enthusiastic love for a lukewarm love, my whole life for one brief day!"
"Madame, I love you passionately; my heart too is young and ardent, and,
if it is not worthy of yours, no man's heart will ever be. I know how
you must be loved; I have not waited until this day to find out. Do I
not know your life? did I not describe it to you at the ball, the first
time that I ever had the privilege of speaking to you? Did I not read
the whole history of your heart in the first one of your glances that
ever fell upon me? And with what did I fall in love, think you? with
your beauty alone? Ah! that is surely enough to drive an older and less
passionate man to frenzy; but for my part, if I adore that gracious and
charming envelope, it is because it encloses a pure and divine soul, it
is because a celestial fire quickens it, and because I see in you not a
woman simply, but an angel."
"I know that you possess the art of praising; but do not hope to move my
vanity. I have no need of homage, but of affection. I must be loved
without a rival, without reserve and forever; you must be ready to
sacrifice everything to me, fortune, reputation, duty, business,
principles, family--everything, monsieur, because I shall place the same
absolute devotion in my scale, and I wish them to balance. You see that
you cannot love me like that!"
It was not the first time that Raymon had seen a woman take love
seriously, although such cases are rare, luckily for society; but he
knew that promises of love do not bind the honor, again luckily for
society. Sometimes too the women who had demanded from him these solemn
pledges had been the first to break them. He did not take fright
therefore at Madame Delmare's demands, or rather he gave no thought
either to the past or the future. He was borne along by the irresistible
fascination of that frail, passionate woman, so weak in body, so
resolute in heart and mind. She was so beautiful, so animated, so
imposing as she dictated her laws to him, that he remained as if
fascinated at her knees.
"I swear," he said, "that I will be yours body and soul; I devote my
life, I consecrate my blood to you, I place my will at your service;
take everything, do as you will with my fortune, my honor, my
conscience, my thoughts, my whole being."
"Hush!" said Indiana hastily, "here is my cousin."
As she spoke the phlegmatic Sir Ralph Brown entered the room with his
usual tranquil air, expressing great surprise and pleasure to see his
cousin, whom he had not hoped to see. Then he asked permission to kiss
her by way of manifesting his gratitude, and, leaning over her with
methodical moderation, he kissed her on the lips, according to the
custom among children in his country.
Raymon turned pale with anger and Ralph had no sooner left the room to
give some order, than he went to Indiana and tried to remove all trace
of that impertinent kiss. But Madame Delmare calmly pushed him away.
"Remember," she said, "that you owe much reparation if you wish me to
believe in you."
Raymon did not understand the delicacy of this rebuff; he saw in it
nothing but a rebuff and he was angry with Sir Ralph. Shortly after he
noticed that, when Sir Ralph spoke to Indiana in an undertone, he used
the more familiar form of address, and he was on the verge of mistaking
the reserve which custom imposed upon Sir Ralph at other times, for the
precaution of a favored lover. But he blushed for his insulting
suspicions as soon as he met the young woman's pure glance.
That evening Raymon displayed his intellectual powers. There was a large
company and people listened to him; he could not escape the prominence
which his talents gave him. He talked, and if Indiana had been vain she
would have had her first taste of happiness in listening to him. But on
the contrary her simple, straightforward mind took fright at Raymon's
superiority; she struggled against the magic power which he exerted over
all about him, a sort of magnetic influence which heaven, or hell,
accords to certain men--a partial and ephemeral royalty, so real that no
mediocre mind can escape its ascendancy, so fleeting that no trace of it
remains after them, and that when they die we are amazed at the
sensation they made during their lives.
There were many times when Indiana was fascinated by such a brilliant
display; but she at once said to herself sadly that she was eager for
happiness, not for glory. She asked herself in dismay if this man, for
whom life had so many different aspects, so many absorbing interests,
could devote his whole mind to her, sacrifice all his ambitions to her.
And while he defended step by step, with such courage and skill, such
ardor and self-possession, doctrines purely speculative and interests
entirely foreign to their love, she was terrified to see that she was of
so little account in his life while he was everything in hers. She said
to herself in terror that she was to him a three days' fancy and that he
had been to her the dream of a whole life.
When he offered her his arm as they were leaving the salon, he whispered
a few words of love in her ear; but she answered sadly:
"You have a great mind!"
Raymon understood the reproof and passed the whole of the following day
at Madame Delmare's feet. The other guests, being engrossed by their
hunting, left them entirely to themselves.
Raymon was eloquent; Indiana had such a craving to believe, that half of
his eloquence was wasted. Women of France, you do not know what a creole
is; you would undoubtedly have yielded less readily to conviction, for
you are not the ones to be deceived or betrayed!