“Yes,” continued he slowly, “I would like to think, as you say, that I
shall be permitted to see you again some day, and sincerely be your
friend. Time will pass over my head and yours. You will not always be
young and beautiful. Long years will doubtless pass. To enable me to
endure the present, I must look forward to the time when I shall be no
longer young, and can see you again, and resume without fear the title I
ought not to claim, I acknowledge, while there is any danger of profaning
it. I await that day.”
It was by no means with indifference I listened to his agitated, trembling
voice; but I manifested nothing outwardly, and was even able to smile, as
I replied:
“It will not be necessary to wait so long as you suppose, I assure you.
Long before my hair grows white, what there is good and true in your
friendship will be restored to me. For before that day some one, more
beautiful than I (whom it will not be difficult to find), and, moreover,
worthy of you, to whom you can give your whole heart, will have effaced
the remembrance of the passing fancy I have caused without intending it,
but which shall not be prolonged a single instant with my consent.”
I passed by him without looking up or giving him time to reply, and
returned to the drawing‐room. There I seated myself on a sofa in an
obscure corner of the room, or rather, I fell on it, pale, faint, and
exhausted by the effort I had made.
I did not believe a word of what I had just said to Gilbert. My duty was
to send him away, and this duty was accomplished! But I by no means
desired another should so soon efface my image. I said so to allay his
regret and appear indifferent. I was proud of the courage I had
manifested. When I compared myself with Lorenzo, I thought myself
perfectly heroic, and I was about to have reason to think myself a
thousand times more so.
Lando at that moment left the piano, where he had been stationed all the
evening beside Teresina. The latter, it may be remarked _en passant_, had
profited so well by his hints that her toilet had become irreproachable,
and now added singularly to the effect of her beauty. Lando perceived it,
and it was evident he also thought of my cousin’s by no means despicable
dowry among her other attractions, as a possible means of abridging his
exile and returning to Paris before the two years had expired. When,
therefore, I saw him coming with a grave air towards the place where I was
seated, I thought I was about to receive a communication I had long been
prepared for. I did not suspect what he had to say concerned me much more
directly than himself.
“Cousin Ginevra,” said he in a low tone, as he took a seat beside me, “I
have had news from Milan.”