It was with an interest languid and listless indeed, compared with that
which he would have felt a day before, that Graham mused over the
remarkable advances towards the discovery of Louise Duval which were made
in the letters he had perused. She had married, then, first a foreigner,
whom she spoke of as noble, and whose name and residence could be easily
found through the Countess von Rudesheim. The marriage did not seem to
have been a happy one. Left a widow in reduced circumstances, she
had married again, evidently without affection. She was living so late
as 1861, and she had children living is 1859: was the child referred to
by Richard King one of them?
The tone and style of the letters served to throw some light on the
character of the writer: they evinced pride, stubborn self-will, and
unamiable hardness of nature; but her rejection of all pecuniary aid from
a man like the late Marquis de Rochebriant betokened a certain dignity of
sentiment. She was evidently, whatever her strange ideas about her first
marriage with Richard King, no vulgar woman of gallantry; and there must
have been some sort of charm about her to have excited a friendly
interest in a kinsman so remote, and a man of pleasure so selfish, as her
high-born correspondent.
But what now, so far as concerned his own happiness, was the hope, the
probable certainty, of a speedy fulfilment of the trust bequeathed to
him? Whether the result, in the death of the mother, and more especially
of the child, left him rich, or, if the last survived, reduced his
fortune to a modest independence, Isaura was equally lost to him, and
fortune became valueless. But his first emotions on recovering from the
shock of hearing from Isaura's lips that she was irrevocably affianced to
another, were not those of self-reproach. They were those of intense
bitterness against her who, if really so much attached to him as he had
been led to hope, could within so brief a time reconcile her heart to
marriage with another. This bitterness was no doubt unjust; but I
believe it to be natural to men of a nature so proud and of affections so
intense as Graham's, under similar defeats of hope. Resentment is the
first impulse in a man loving with the whole ardour of his soul,
rejected, no matter why or wherefore, by the woman by whom he had cause
to believe he himself was beloved; and though Graham's standard of honour
was certainly the reverse of low, yet man does not view honour in the
same light as woman does, when involved in analogous difficulties of
position. Graham conscientiously thought that if Isaura so loved him
as to render distasteful an engagement to another which could only very
recently have been contracted, it would be more honourable frankly so to
tell the accepted suitor than to leave him in ignorance that her heart
was estranged. But these engagements are very solemn things with girls
like Isaura, and hers was no ordinary obligation of woman-honour. Had
the accepted one been superior in rank-fortune--all that flatters the
ambition of woman in the choice of marriage; had he been resolute, and
strong, and self-dependent amid the trials and perils of life--then
possibly the woman's honour might find excuse in escaping the penalties
of its pledge. But the poor, ailing, infirm, morbid boy-poet, who looked
to her as his saving angel in body, in mind, and soul-to say to him,
"Give me back my freedom," would be to abandon him to death and to sin.
But Graham could not of course divine why what he as a man thought right
was to Isaura as woman impossible: and he returned to his old prejudiced
notion that there is no real depth and ardour of affection for human
lovers in the poetess whose mind and heart are devoted to the creation of
imaginary heroes. Absorbed in reverie, he took his way slowly and with
downcast looks towards the British embassy, at which it was well to
ascertain whether the impending war yet necessitated special passports
for Germany.
"_Bon-jour, cher ami_," said a pleasant voice; "and how long have you
been at Paris?"
"Oh, my dear M. Savarin! charmed to see you looking so well! Madame
well too, I trust? My kindest regards to her. I have been in Paris but
a day or two, and I leave this evening."
"So soon? The war frightens you away, I suppose. Which way are you
going now?"
"To the British embassy."
"Well, I will go with you so far--it is in my own direction. I have to
call at the charming Italian's with my congratulations--on news I only
heard this morning."
"You mean Mademoiselle Cicogna--and the news that demands congratulations
--her approaching marriage!"
"_Mon Dieu_! when could you have heard of that?"
"Last night at the house of M. Duplessis."
"_Parbleu_! I shall scold her well for confiding to her new friend
Valerie the secret she kept from her old friends, my wife and myself."
"By the way," said Graham, with a tone of admirably-feigned indifference,
"who is the happy man? That part of the secret I did not hear."
"Can't you guess?"
"NO."
"Gustave Rameau."
"Ah!" Graham almost shrieked, so sharp and shrill was his cry. "Ah! I
ought indeed to have guessed that!"
"Madame Savarin, I fancy, helped to make up the marriage. I hope it may
turn out well; certainly it will be his salvation. May it be for her
happiness!"
"No doubt of that! Two poets-born for each other, I dare say. Adieu, my
dear Savarin! Here we are at the embassy."