And still the weeks glided on: autumn succeeded to summer, the winter to
autumn; the season of Paris was at its height. The wondrous capital
seemed to repay its Imperial embellisher by the splendour and the joy of
its _fetes_. But the smiles on the face of Paris were hypocritical and
hollow. The Empire itself had passed out of fashion. Grave men and
impartial observers felt anxious. Napoleon had renounced _les ideas
Napoleoniennes_. He was passing into the category of constitutional
sovereigns, and reigning, not by his old undivided prestige, but by the
grace of party. The press was free to circulate complaints as to the
past and demands as to the future, beneath which the present reeled,
ominous of earthquake. People asked themselves if it were possible that
the Empire could co-exist with forms of government not imperial, yet not
genuinely constitutional, with a majority daily yielding to a minority.
The basis of universal suffrage was sapped. About this time the articles
in the "Sens Commun" signed Pierre Firmin were creating not only
considerable sensation, but marked effect on opinion; and the sale
of the journal was immense.
Necessarily the repute and the position of Gustave Rameau, as the avowed
editor of this potent journal, rose with its success. Nor only his
repute and position; bank-notes of considerable value were transmitted to
him by the publisher, with the brief statement that they were sent by the
sole proprietor of the paper as the editor's fair share of profit. The
proprietor was never named, but Rameau took it for granted that it was M.
Lebeau. M. Lebeau he had never seen since the day he had brought him the
list of contributors, and was then referred to the publisher, whom he
supposed M. Lebeau had secured, and received the first quarter of his
salary in advance. The salary was a trifle compared to the extra profits
thus generously volunteered. He called at Lebeau's office, and saw only
the clerk, who said that his chef was abroad.
Prosperity produced a marked change for the better, if not in the
substance of Rameau's character, at least in his manners and social
converse. He no longer exhibited that restless envy of rivals, which
is the most repulsive symptom of vanity diseased. He pardoned Isaura her
success; nay, he was even pleased at it. The nature of her work did not
clash with his own kind of writing. It was so thoroughly woman like that
one could not compare it to a man's. Moreover, that success had
contributed largely to the profits by which he had benefited, and to his
renown as editor of the journal which accorded place to this new-found
genius. But there was a deeper and more potent cause for sympathy with
the success of his fair young contributor. He had imperceptibly glided
into love with her,--a love very different from that with which poor
Julie Caumartin flattered herself she had inspired the young poet.
Isaura was one of those women for whom, even in natures the least
chivalric, love, however ardent, cannot fail to be accompanied with a
certain reverence,--the reverence with which the ancient knighthood, in
its love for women, honoured the ideal purity of womanhood itself. Till
then Rameau had never revered any one.
On her side, brought so frequently into communication with the young
conductor of the journal in which she wrote, Isaura entertained for him a
friendly, almost sister-like affection.
I do not think that, even if she had never known the Englishman, she
would have really become in love with Rameau, despite the picturesque
beauty of his countenance and the congeniality of literary pursuits; but
perhaps she might have fancied herself in love with him. And till one,
whether man or woman, has known real love, fancy is readily mistaken for
it. But little as she had seen of Graham, and that little not in itself
wholly favourable to him, she knew in her heart of hearts that his image
would never be replaced by one equally dear. Perhaps in those qualities
that placed him in opposition to her she felt his attractions. The
poetical in woman exaggerates the worth of the practical in man. Still
for Rameau her exquisitely kind and sympathizing nature conceived one of
those sentiments which in woman are almost angel-like. We have seen in
her letters to Madame de Grantmesnil that from the first he inspired her
with a compassionate interest; then the compassion was checked by her
perception of his more unamiable and envious attributes. But now those
attributes, if still existent, had ceased to be apparent to her, and the
compassion became unalloyed. Indeed, it was thus so far increased that
it was impossible for any friendly observer to look at the beautiful face
of this youth, prematurely wasted and worn, without the kindliness of
pity. His prosperity had brightened and sweetened the expression of that
face, but it had not effaced the vestiges of decay; rather perhaps
deepened them, for the duties of his post necessitated a regular labour,
to which he had been unaccustomed, and the regular labour necessitated,
or seemed to him to necessitate, an increase of fatal stimulants. He
imbibed absinthe with everything he drank, and to absinthe he united
opium. This, of course, Isaura knew not, any more than she knew of his
_liaison_ with the "Ondine" of his muse; she saw only the increasing
delicacy of his face and form, contrasted by his increased geniality and
liveliness of spirits, and the contrast saddened her. Intellectually,
too, she felt for him compassion. She recognized and respected in him
the yearnings of a genius too weak to perform a tithe of what, in the
arrogance of youth, it promised to its ambition. She saw, too, those
struggles between a higher and a lower self, to which a weak degree of
genius united with a strong degree of arrogance is so often subjected.
Perhaps she overestimated the degree of genius, and what, if rightly
guided, it could do; but she did, in the desire of her own heavenlier
instinct, aspire to guide it heavenward. And as if she were twenty years
older than himself, she obeyed that desire in remonstrating and warning
and urging, and the young man took all these "preachments" with a pleased
submissive patience. Such, as the new year dawned upon the grave of the,
old one, was the position between these two. And nothing more was heard
from Graham Vane.