oak-stump, with a few leaves fluttering about it, withered by autumnal
frosts; and his niece immediately began to try the ever-new power of her
coquettish arts. Long familiar with the secret of cajoling the old man,
she lavished on him the most childlike caresses, the tenderest names;
she even went so far as to kiss him to induce him to divulge so
important a secret. The old man, who spent his life in playing off these
scenes on his niece, often paying for them with a present of jewelry,
or by giving her his box at the opera, this time amused himself with
her entreaties, and, above all, her caresses. But as he spun out this
pleasure too long, Emilie grew angry, passed from coaxing to sarcasm and
sulks; then, urged by curiosity, she recovered herself. The diplomatic
admiral extracted a solemn promise from his niece that she would for
the future be gentler, less noisy, and less wilful, that she would spend
less, and, above all, tell him everything. The treaty being concluded,
and signed by a kiss impressed on Emilie’s white brow, he led her into
a corner of the room, drew her on to his knee, held the card under the
thumbs so as to hide it, and then uncovered the letters one by one,
spelling the name of Longueville; but he firmly refused to show her
anything more.
This incident added to the intensity of Mademoiselle de Fontaine’s
secret sentiment, and during chief part of the night she evolved the
most brilliant pictures from the dreams with which she had fed her
hopes. At last, thanks to chance, to which she had so often
appealed, Emilie could now see something very unlike a chimera at the
fountain-head of the imaginary wealth with which she gilded her married
life. Ignorant, as all young girls are, of the perils of love and
marriage, she was passionately captivated by the externals of marriage
and love. Is not this as much as to say that her feeling had birth like
all the feelings of extreme youth--sweet but cruel mistakes, which exert
a fatal influence on the lives of young girls so inexperienced as to
trust their own judgment to take care of their future happiness?
Next morning, before Emilie was awake, her uncle had hastened to
Chevreuse. On recognizing, in the courtyard of an elegant little villa,
the young man he had so determinedly insulted the day before, he went up
to him with the pressing politeness of men of the old court.
“Why, my dear sir, who could have guessed that I should have a brush,
at the age of seventy-three, with the son, or the grandson, of one of my
best friends. I am a vice-admiral, monsieur; is not that as much as to
say that I think no more of fighting a duel than of smoking a cigar?
Why, in my time, no two young men could be intimate till they had seen
the color of their blood! But ‘sdeath, sir, last evening, sailor-like,
I had taken a drop too much grog on board, and I ran you down. Shake
hands; I would rather take a hundred rebuffs from a Longueville than
cause his family the smallest regret.”
However coldly the young man tried to behave to the Comte de Kergarouet,
he could not resist the frank cordiality of his manner, and presently
gave him his hand.
“You were going out riding,” said the Count. “Do not let me detain you.
But, unless you have other plans, I beg you will come to dinner to-day
at the Villa Planat. My nephew, the Comte de Fontaine, is a man it is
essential that you should know. Ah, ha! And I propose to make up to you
for my clumsiness by introducing you to five of the prettiest women
in Paris. So, so, young man, your brow is clearing! I am fond of young
people, and I like to see them happy. Their happiness reminds me of the
good times of my youth, when adventures were not lacking, any more
than duels. We were gay dogs then! Nowadays you think and worry over
everything, as though there had never been a fifteenth and a sixteenth
century.”
“But, monsieur, are we not in the right? The sixteenth century only gave
religious liberty to Europe, and the nineteenth will give it political
lib----”
“Oh, we will not talk politics. I am a perfect old woman--ultra you see.
But I do not hinder young men from being revolutionary, so long as they
leave the King at liberty to disperse their assemblies.”
When they had gone a little way, and the Count and his companion were in
the heart of the woods, the old sailor pointed out a slender young
birch sapling, pulled up his horse, took out one of his pistols, and the
bullet was lodged in the heart of the tree, fifteen paces away.
“You see, my dear fellow, that I am not afraid of a duel,” he said with
comical gravity, as he looked at Monsieur Longueville.
“Nor am I,” replied the young man, promptly cocking his pistol; he aimed
at the hole made by the Comte’s bullet, and sent his own close to it.
“That is what I call a well-educated man,” cried the admiral with
enthusiasm.
During this ride with the youth, whom he already regarded as his nephew,
he found endless opportunities of catechizing him on all the trifles of
which a perfect knowledge constituted, according to his private code, an
accomplished gentleman.
“Have you any debts?” he at last asked of his companion, after many
other inquiries.
“No, monsieur.”
“What, you pay for all you have?”
“Punctually; otherwise we should lose our credit, and every sort of
respect.”
“But at least you have more than one mistress? Ah, you blush, comrade!
Well, manners have changed. All these notions of lawful order, Kantism,
and liberty have spoilt the young men. You have no Guimard now, no
Duthe, no creditors--and you know nothing of heraldry; why, my dear
young friend, you are not fully fledged. The man who does not sow his
wild oats in the spring sows them in the winter. If I have but eighty
thousand francs a year at the age of seventy, it is because I ran
through the capital at thirty. Oh! with my wife--in decency and honor.
However, your imperfections will not interfere with my introducing you
at the Pavillon Planat. Remember, you have promised to come, and I shall
expect you.”
“What an odd little old man!” said Longueville to himself. “He is so
jolly and hale; but though he wishes to seem a good fellow, I will not
trust him too far.”
Next day, at about four o’clock, when the house party were dispersed
in the drawing-rooms and billiard-room, a servant announced to the
inhabitants of the Villa Planat, “Monsieur DE Longueville.” On hearing
the name of the old admiral’s protege, every one, down to the player who
was about to miss his stroke, rushed in, as much to study Mademoiselle
de Fontaine’s countenance as to judge of this phoenix of men, who had
earned honorable mention to the detriment of so many rivals. A simple
but elegant style of dress, an air of perfect ease, polite manners, a
pleasant voice with a ring in it which found a response in the hearer’s
heart-strings, won the good-will of the family for Monsieur Longueville.
He did not seem unaccustomed to the luxury of the Receiver-General’s
ostentatious mansion. Though his conversation was that of a man of the
world, it was easy to discern that he had had a brilliant education, and
that his knowledge was as thorough as it was extensive. He knew so well
the right thing to say in a discussion on naval architecture, trivial,
it is true, started by the old admiral, that one of the ladies remarked
that he must have passed through the Ecole Polytechnique.
“And I think, madame,” he replied, “that I may regard it as an honor to
have got in.”
In spite of urgent pressing, he refused politely but firmly to be kept
to dinner, and put an end to the persistency of the ladies by saying
that he was the Hippocrates of his young sister, whose delicate health
required great care.
“Monsieur is perhaps a medical man?” asked one of Emilie’s
sisters-in-law with ironical meaning.
“Monsieur has left the Ecole Polytechnique,” Mademoiselle de Fontaine
kindly put in; her face had flushed with richer color, as she learned
that the young lady of the ball was Monsieur Longueville’s sister.
“But, my dear, he may be a doctor and yet have been to the Ecole
Polytechnique--is it not so, monsieur?”
“There is nothing to prevent it, madame,” replied the young man.
Every eye was on Emilie, who was gazing with uneasy curiosity at the
fascinating stranger. She breathed more freely when he added, not
without a smile, “I have not the honor of belonging to the medical
profession; and I even gave up going into the Engineers in order to
preserve my independence.”
“And you did well,” said the Count. “But how can you regard it as an
honor to be a doctor?” added the Breton nobleman. “Ah, my young friend,
such a man as you----”
“Monsieur le Comte, I respect every profession that has a useful
purpose.”
“Well, in that we agree. You respect those professions, I imagine, as a
young man respects a dowager.”
Monsieur Longueville made his visit neither too long nor too short. He
left at the moment when he saw that he had pleased everybody, and that
each one’s curiosity about him had been roused.
“He is a cunning rascal!” said the Count, coming into the drawing-room
after seeing him to the door.
Mademoiselle de Fontaine, who had been in the secret of this call, had
dressed with some care to attract the young man’s eye; but she had the
little disappointment of finding that he did not bestow on her so much
attention as she thought she deserved. The family were a good deal
surprised at the silence into which she had retired. Emilie generally
displayed all her arts for the benefit of newcomers, her witty prattle,
and the inexhaustible eloquence of her eyes and attitudes. Whether
it was that the young man’s pleasing voice and attractive manners had
charmed her, that she was seriously in love, and that this feeling had
worked a change in her, her demeanor had lost all its affectations.
Being simple and natural, she must, no doubt, have seemed more
beautiful. Some of her sisters, and an old lady, a friend of the family,
saw in this behavior a refinement of art. They supposed that Emilie,
judging the man worthy of her, intended to delay revealing her merits,
so as to dazzle him suddenly when she found that she pleased him. Every
member of the family was curious to know what this capricious creature
thought of the stranger; but when, during dinner, every one chose to
endow Monsieur Longueville with some fresh quality which no one else
had discovered, Mademoiselle de Fontaine sat for some time in silence. A
sarcastic remark of her uncle’s suddenly roused her from her apathy;
she said, somewhat epigrammatically, that such heavenly perfection
must cover some great defect, and that she would take good care how she
judged so gifted a man at first sight.
“Those who please everybody, please nobody,” she added; “and the worst
of all faults is to have none.”
Like all girls who are in love, Emilie cherished the hope of being
able to hide her feelings at the bottom of her heart by putting the
Argus-eyes that watched on the wrong tack; but by the end of a fortnight
there was not a member of the large family party who was not in this
little domestic secret. When Monsieur Longueville called for the third
time, Emilie believed it was chiefly for her sake. This discovery gave
her such intoxicating pleasure that she was startled as she reflected on
it. There was something in it very painful to her pride. Accustomed as
she was to be the centre of her world, she was obliged to recognize a
force that attracted her outside herself; she tried to resist, but she
could not chase from her heart the fascinating image of the young man.
Then came some anxiety. Two of Monsieur Longueville’s qualities,
very adverse to general curiosity, and especially to Mademoiselle de
Fontaine’s, were unexpected modesty and discretion. He never spoke of
himself, of his pursuits, or of his family. The hints Emilie threw out
in conversation, and the traps she laid to extract from the young fellow
some facts concerning himself, he could evade with the adroitness of a
diplomatist concealing a secret. If she talked of painting, he responded
as a connoisseur; if she sat down to play, he showed without conceit
that he was a very good pianist; one evening he delighted all the
party by joining his delightful voice to Emilie’s in one of Cimarosa’s
charming duets. But when they tried to find out whether he were a
professional singer, he baffled them so pleasantly that he did not
afford these women, practised as they were in the art of reading
feelings, the least chance of discovering to what social sphere he
belonged. However boldly the old uncle cast the boarding-hooks over the
vessel, Longueville slipped away cleverly, so as to preserve the charm
of mystery; and it was easy to him to remain the “handsome Stranger”
at the Villa, because curiosity never overstepped the bounds of good
breeding.
Emilie, distracted by this reserve, hoped to get more out of the sister
than the brother, in the form of confidences. Aided by her uncle, who
was as skilful in such manoeuvres as in handling a ship, she endeavored
to bring upon the scene the hitherto unseen figure of Mademoiselle Clara
Longueville. The family party at the Villa Planat soon expressed the
greatest desire to make the acquaintance of so amiable a young lady, and
to give her some amusement. An informal dance was proposed and accepted.
The ladies did not despair of making a young girl of sixteen talk.
Notwithstanding the little clouds piled up by suspicion and created by
curiosity, a light of joy shone in Emilie’s soul, for she found life
delicious when thus intimately connected with another than herself. She
began to understand the relations of life. Whether it is that happiness
makes us better, or that she was too fully occupied to torment other
people, she became less caustic, more gentle, and indulgent. This change
in her temper enchanted and amazed her family. Perhaps, at last, her
selfishness was being transformed to love. It was a deep delight to her
to look for the arrival of her bashful and unconfessed adorer. Though
they had not uttered a word of passion, she knew that she was loved, and
with what art did she not lead the stranger to unlock the stores of his
information, which proved to be varied! She perceived that she, too,
was being studied, and that made her endeavor to remedy the defects her
education had encouraged. Was not this her first homage to love, and
a bitter reproach to herself? She desired to please, and she was
enchanting; she loved, and she was idolized. Her family, knowing that
her pride would sufficiently protect her, gave her enough freedom to
enjoy the little childish delights which give to first love its charm
and its violence. More than once the young man and Mademoiselle de
Fontaine walked, tete-a-tete, in the avenues of the garden, where nature
was dressed like a woman going to a ball. More than once they had those
conversations, aimless and meaningless, in which the emptiest phrases
are those which cover the deepest feelings. They often admired together
the setting sun and its gorgeous coloring. They gathered daisies to pull
the petals off, and sang the most impassioned duets, using the notes set
down by Pergolesi or Rossini as faithful interpreters to express their
secrets.
The day of the dance came. Clara Longueville and her brother, whom the
servants persisted in honoring with the noble DE, were the principle
guests. For the first time in her life Mademoiselle de Fontaine felt
pleasure in a young girl’s triumph. She lavished on Clara in all
sincerity the gracious petting and little attentions which women
generally give each other only to excite the jealousy of men. Emilie,
had, indeed, an object in view; she wanted to discover some secrets.
But, being a girl, Mademoiselle Longueville showed even more mother-wit
than her brother, for she did not even look as if she were hiding a
secret, and kept the conversation to subjects unconnected with personal
interests, while, at the same time, she gave it so much charm that
Mademoiselle de Fontaine was almost envious, and called her “the Siren.”
Though Emilie had intended to make Clara talk, it was Clara, in fact,
who questioned Emilie; she had meant to judge her, and she was judged by
her; she was constantly provoked to find that she had betrayed her own
character in some reply which Clara had extracted from her, while her
modest and candid manner prohibited any suspicion of perfidy. There was
a moment when Mademoiselle de Fontaine seemed sorry for an ill-judged
sally against the commonalty to which Clara had led her.
“Mademoiselle,” said the sweet child, “I have heard so much of you from
Maximilien that I had the keenest desire to know you, out of affection
for him; but is not a wish to know you a wish to love you?”
“My dear Clara, I feared I might have displeased you by speaking thus of
people who are not of noble birth.”
“Oh, be quite easy. That sort of discussion is pointless in these days.
As for me, it does not affect me. I am beside the question.”
Ambitious as the answer might seem, it filled Mademoiselle de Fontaine
with the deepest joy; for, like all infatuated people, she explained it,
as oracles are explained, in the sense that harmonized with her wishes;
she began dancing again in higher spirits than ever, as she watched
Longueville, whose figure and grace almost surpassed those of her
imaginary ideal. She felt added satisfaction in believing him to be well
born, her black eyes sparkled, and she danced with all the pleasure that
comes of dancing in the presence of the being we love. The couple had
never understood each other as well as at this moment; more than once
they felt their finger tips thrill and tremble as they were married in
the figures of the dance.
The early autumn had come to the handsome pair, in the midst of country
festivities and pleasures; they had abandoned themselves softly to the
tide of the sweetest sentiment in life, strengthening it by a thousand
little incidents which any one can imagine; for love is in some respects
always the same. They studied each other through it all, as much as
lovers can.
“Well, well; a flirtation never turned so quickly into a love match,”
said the old uncle, who kept an eye on the two young people as a
naturalist watches an insect in the microscope.
The speech alarmed Monsieur and Madame Fontaine. The old Vendeen had
ceased to be so indifferent to his daughter’s prospects as he had
promised to be. He went to Paris to seek information, and found none.
Uneasy at this mystery, and not yet knowing what might be the outcome
of the inquiry which he had begged a Paris friend to institute with
reference to the family of Longueville, he thought it his duty to warn
his daughter to behave prudently. The fatherly admonition was received
with mock submission spiced with irony.
“At least, my dear Emilie, if you love him, do not own it to him.”
“My dear father, I certainly do love him; but I will await your
permission before I tell him so.”
“But remember, Emilie, you know nothing of his family or his pursuits.”
“I may be ignorant, but I am content to be. But, father, you wished to
see me married; you left me at liberty to make my choice; my choice is
irrevocably made--what more is needful?”
“It is needful to ascertain, my dear, whether the man of your choice
is the son of a peer of France,” the venerable gentleman retorted
sarcastically.
Emilie was silent for a moment. She presently raised her head, looked at
her father, and said somewhat anxiously, “Are not the Longuevilles----?”
“They became extinct in the person of the old Duc de Rostein-Limbourg,
who perished on the scaffold in 1793. He was the last representative of
the last and younger branch.”
“But, papa, there are some very good families descended from bastards.
The history of France swarms with princes bearing the bar sinister on
their shields.”
“Your ideas are much changed,” said the old man, with a smile.
The following day was the last that the Fontaine family were to spend at
the Pavillon Planat. Emilie, greatly disturbed by her father’s warning,
awaited with extreme impatience the hour at which young Longueville was
in the habit of coming, to wring some explanation from him. She went out
after dinner, and walked alone across the shrubbery towards an arbor fit
for lovers, where she knew that the eager youth would seek her; and
as she hastened thither she considered of the best way to discover so
important a matter without compromising herself--a rather difficult
thing! Hitherto no direct avowal had sanctioned the feelings which bound
her to this stranger. Like Maximilien, she had secretly enjoyed the
sweetness of first love; but both were equally proud, and each feared to
confess that love.
Maximilien Longueville, to whom Clara had communicated her not unfounded
suspicions as to Emilie’s character, was by turns carried away by the
violence of a young man’s passion, and held back by a wish to know and
test the woman to whom he would be entrusting his happiness. His love
had not hindered him from perceiving in Emilie the prejudices which
marred her young nature; but before attempting to counteract them, he
wished to be sure that she loved him, for he would no sooner risk the
fate of his love than of his life. He had, therefore, persistently kept
a silence to which his looks, his behavior, and his smallest actions
gave the lie.
On her side, the self-respect natural to a young girl, augmented in
Mademoiselle de Fontaine by the monstrous vanity founded on her birth
and beauty, kept her from meeting the declaration half-way, which her
growing passion sometimes urged her to invite. Thus the lovers had
instinctively understood the situation without explaining to each
other their secret motives. There are times in life when such vagueness
pleases youthful minds. Just because each had postponed speaking too
long, they seemed to be playing a cruel game of suspense. He was trying
to discover whether he was beloved, by the effort any confession would
cost his haughty mistress; she every minute hoped that he would break a
too respectful silence.
Emilie, seated on a rustic bench, was reflecting on all that had
happened in these three months full of enchantment. Her father’s
suspicions were the last that could appeal to her; she even disposed
of them at once by two or three of those reflections natural to an
inexperienced girl, which, to her, seemed conclusive. Above all, she was
convinced that it was impossible that she should deceive herself. All
the summer through she had not been able to detect in Maximilien a
single gesture, or a single word, which could indicate a vulgar origin
or vulgar occupations; nay more, his manner of discussing things
revealed a man devoted to the highest interests of the nation.
“Besides,” she reflected, “an office clerk, a banker, or a merchant,
would not be at leisure to spend a whole season in paying his addresses
to me in the midst of woods and fields; wasting his time as freely as a
nobleman who has life before him free of all care.”
She had given herself up to meditations far more interesting to her
than these preliminary thoughts, when a slight rustling in the leaves
announced to her than Maximilien had been watching her for a minute, not
probably without admiration.
“Do you know that it is very wrong to take a young girl thus unawares?”
she asked him, smiling.
“Especially when they are busy with their secrets,” replied Maximilien
archly.
“Why should I not have my secrets? You certainly have yours.”
“Then you really were thinking of your secrets?” he went on, laughing.
“No, I was thinking of yours. My own, I know.”
“But perhaps my secrets are yours, and yours mine,” cried the young man,
softly seizing Mademoiselle de Fontaine’s hand and drawing it through
his arm.
After walking a few steps they found themselves under a clump of trees
which the hues of the sinking sun wrapped in a haze of red and brown.
This touch of natural magic lent a certain solemnity to the moment. The
young man’s free and eager action, and, above all, the throbbing of his
surging heart, whose hurried beating spoke to Emilie’s arm, stirred her
to an emotion that was all the more disturbing because it was produced
by the simplest and most innocent circumstances. The restraint under
which the young girls of the upper class live gives incredible force to
any explosion of feeling, and to meet an impassioned lover is one of
the greatest dangers they can encounter. Never had Emilie and Maximilien
allowed their eyes to say so much that they dared never speak. Carried
a way by this intoxication, they easily forgot the petty stipulations
of pride, and the cold hesitancies of suspicion. At first, indeed, they
could only express themselves by a pressure of hands which interpreted
their happy thoughts.
After slowing pacing a few steps in long silence, Mademoiselle de
Fontaine spoke. “Monsieur, I have a question to ask you,” she said
trembling, and in an agitated voice. “But, remember, I beg, that it is
in a manner compulsory on me, from the rather singular position I am in
with regard to my family.”
A pause, terrible to Emilie, followed these sentences, which she had
almost stammered out. During the minute while it lasted, the girl,
haughty as she was, dared not meet the flashing eye of the man she
loved, for she was secretly conscious of the meanness of the next words
she added: “Are you of noble birth?”