It was no longer possible for Caroline to feel a doubt of the sentiment
she had inspired. To avoid responding to it, she had but one line of
defence, which was to act either as if she had never suspected it, or as
if she did not suppose the Marquis would dare to speak of it a second
time to her, even indirectly. She resolved to discourage him so
completely that he would never recur to the subject, and not to remain
alone with him long enough for him to lose his natural timidity under
the impulse of increasing emotion.
When she had thus marked out her course of conduct, she hoped to be at
peace; but, after all, she had to give way to natural feelings, and sob
as if her heart would break. She wisely yielded to this grief, saying to
herself, that, since it must be so, it was better for her to suffer from
a momentary weakness than to struggle against herself too much. She well
knew that in a direct contest our instinctive self-love awakes, in spite
of us, and leads us to seek some side issue, some compromise with the
austerity of duty or destiny. She refused, then, to dream or reflect; it
was better for her to hide her head and weep.
She did not see M. de Villemer again until evening, just as the ordinary
visitors of the family were taking leave; he came in with the Duke, both
of them in evening dress. They had just returned from the residence of
the Duchess de Dunières.
Caroline would have retired immediately. The Marchioness detained her,
saying, "O, so much the worse, my dear, you will have to sit up a little
later this evening. It's worth while though; we are going to hear what
has happened."
Before long the explanation was forthcoming. The Duke had an undefined
look as of astonishment; but the countenance of the Marquis was open and
calm. "Mother," said he, "I have seen Mlle de Xaintrailles. She is
beautiful, amiable, full of attractions; I can't imagine any sentiments
which she might not inspire in the man who has the good fortune to
please her; but I have had no such good fortune. She would n't look at
me twice,--so entirely did the first glance suffice for her to pass
judgment on me."
And as the Marchioness was silent in utter consternation, the Marquis
took her hands, adding, as he kissed them, "But this need n't affect you
the least in the world. On the contrary, I have come back full of dreams
and plans and hopes. There is in the air--O, I felt it at once--quite
another marriage than this, and one which will give you infinitely more
pleasure!"
Caroline felt herself dying and reviving by turns at every word she
heard; but she also knew the eyes of the Duke were fastened upon her,
and she said to herself that perhaps the Marquis was stealthily watching
her, between each of his phrases. So she kept her countenance. It was
plain that she had wept; but her sister's departure might be the only
cause. She had acknowledged it, and the Marquis had himself witnessed
her tears on that occasion.
"Come, my son," said the Marchioness, "don't keep me in suspense, and if
you are talking seriously--"
"No, no," said the Duke, mincing gracefully, "it is n't serious."
"But, indeed, it is," cried Urbain, who was unusually gay; "it's on the
programme for the most plausible and delightful thing in the world!"
"It's singular enough, at least--and spicy enough," rejoined the Duke.
"Come now, do stop your riddles," cried the Marchioness.
"Well, let us have it," said the Duke to his brother with a smile.
"I propose to do that; I ask nothing better," replied the Marquis; "it's
quite a story, and I must proceed with it in order. Imagine, my dear
mamma, our arrival at the Duchess's, both as fine as you see us
now,--no, finer still, for there was on our faces that air of conquest
which suits my brother so well, and which I attempted for the first
time, but with no success at all, as you shall see."
"That means," rejoined the Duke, "that you had an air of prodigious
abstraction, and began operations by looking at a portrait of Anne of
Austria, lately placed in the drawing-room of the Duchess, instead of
looking at Mlle de Xaintrailles."
"Ah!" said the Marchioness, sighing, "it was very lovely then, this
portrait?"
"Very lovely," replied Urbain. "You will say it was no time for me to be
noticing this; but you are going to see how fortunate it was, after all,
that it happened. Mlle Diana was seated by the corner of the mantel;
with Mlle de Dunières and two or three other young ladies of haughty
ancestry more or less English. While my distracted eyes are hanging upon
the plump countenance of our late queen, Gaëtan, thinking me close at
his heels, goes directly, in his capacity of elder brother, to salute
first the Duchess, then her daughter and the whole juvenile group,
singling out at once, with an eagle eye, the beautiful Diana, whom he
had n't seen since she was five years old. Having promenaded his
bewitching smile into this privileged corner, and traversed the other
groups with that meek and triumphant elegance which belongs to him
alone, he returns to me, just as I am beginning my evolution toward the
Duchess, and says in an angry tone though in a low voice, 'Come on! what
are you about there?' I dart forward, I salute the Duchess in my turn, I
try to look at my betrothed; she had her back turned to me squarely. An
evil omen! I retreat to the mantel-piece, in order to display all my
advantages. The Duchess addresses some conversation to me, charitably
bent on giving me a chance to shine. And I--why, I was ready to talk
like a book; but it was all for nothing; Mlle de Xaintrailles never
looked at me and listened still less; she was whispering to her young
companions. At last she turns round and darts at me a glance full of
wonder and most decidedly cool. I am introduced to her neighbor, Mlle de
Dunières, a young girl slightly deformed, but brilliant intellectually
it seemed to me, and who was very evidently nudging her friend with her
elbow; but all in vain, and I return to my rostrum, that is, to the
mantel-piece, without having called up the faintest blush. I do not lose
my self-possession, but, resuming conversation with the Duke, I go on
making some very judicious remarks about the session of the Chambers,
when, all at once, I hear the music of charming bursts of laughter,
poorly suppressed, from the young ladies in the corner. Probably they
found me stupid. I am not confounded, however; I continue; and after
having properly shown the fluency of my elocution, I inquire about the
historical portrait, to the great satisfaction of the Duke de Dunières,
who thinks of nothing but having his picture appreciated. While he is
leading me toward it to examine it and admire the beauty of its
execution, my brother quietly takes my place and on my return I find him
installed between the arm-chair of the Duchess and that of her daughter,
close by Mlle Diana, in the midst of the group, joining in the chat of
the young ladies."
"Is this true, my son?" asked the Marchioness of the Duke, with anxiety.
"It is quite true," replied the Duke, ingenuously. "I laid siege to the
fortress; I took a position. I expected Urbain to manœuvre so as to
come to my support; but no, the traitor leaves me alone exposed to the
fire, and you see I have to get off as I can. What took place meanwhile?
He is going to tell you."
"Alas! I know more than enough," said the Marchioness, in despair; "he
was thinking of something else."
"Pardon me, mamma," replied the Marquis, "I had no wish to do so and no
time either, for the Duchess, leaving Gaëtan engaged with the young
ladies, took me aside, and, laughing in spite of herself, said these
memorable words, which I report _verbatim_: 'My dear Marquis, what has
taken place here this evening is like a scene in a comedy. Just imagine
to yourself that the young person--whom it is useless to name--takes you
for your brother, and consequently persists in taking your brother for
you. We tell her she is mistaken, but all in vain; she will have it that
we are deceiving her, that she is not to be taken in so--and--must I
tell you the whole?'
"'Yes, certainly, Madame de Dunières; you are too much my mother's
friend to let me sail on a false course!'
"'Yes, yes, that 's it! I ought not to leave you on the wrong track, I
should be really distressed at that, and you must know at once how
matters stand. They find the Duke charming, and you--'
"'And me absurd? Come! be frank clear to the end.'
"'You! You are not thought of at all, you are not seen, you are nothing,
no one is heard but the Duke! If I did n't know you were very fond of
your brother, I should never tell you this--'
"I reassured the Duchess so earnestly, I expressed so much joy over the
idea that my brother was preferred to me, that she replied, 'Well done!
why, here we are in a romance! When it is known the Duke is the one who
pleases, don't you expect a great outcry?'
"'Why, who will make it? You, Madame de Dunières?'
"'Perhaps so, but it 's certain _she_ will! Well, now, all this must be
explained. Come with me and see what is going on; we cannot part on the
strength of a _quid pro quo._'
"'No, no,' I said to the Duchess, 'you must listen to me first. Here I
have a cause to plead which is a hundred times dearer than my own. You
have said something that alarms me, at which I feel a real concern, and
I beg you will take it back. You seem disposed to decide against my
brother in case your amiable god-daughter should pardon him for not
being the Marquis. As I am sure, now, that she will pardon him without
difficulty, if she has not done so already, I want to understand your
objections to him, in order to do battle against them. My brother has,
on his father's side, a descent far more illustrious than my own; he has
all the traits of a true gentleman, and all the attractions of an
agreeable man; as for me, I am not a man of the world, and, if I must
avow all, I have some tendency toward being a liberal.'
"The Duchess made a gesture of horror; then she began to laugh, thinking
I was in jest."
"Knowing you were in jest, my son!" interposed the Marchioness, in a
tone of reproach.
"Good or poor," rejoined the Marquis, "the joke had no ill effect. The
Duchess let me set off my brother's merits, agreed with me that a man of
rank, who has never forfeited his honor, has a right to ruin himself
financially, that a life of pleasure has always been well received in
high circles, when there is wisdom enough to leave it behind in season,
to accept poverty nobly, and to show one's self superior to one's
follies. Finally, I appealed to the friendship of the Duchess for you,
to the desire she had felt for an alliance with you on the part of her
god-daughter, and I had the good fortune to be so persuasive that she
promised not to influence the choice of Mlle de Xaintrailles."
"Ah! my son, what have you done?" cried the Marchioness, trembling. "I
recognize your good heart in it all, but it is a dream! A girl brought
up in a convent will certainly be afraid of a conquering hero like this
vain fellow. She would never dare to trust him."
"Stop, mother," resumed the Marquis, "I have n't finished my story. When
we returned to the young ladies, Mile. Diana was calling my brother
'Your Grace,' as boldly as you please. She was talking and laughing with
him, and I was allowed to aid him in shining before her. However, he had
no great need of me. She drew him out brilliantly herself, and I found
she was n't sorry to show us in her replies that she was quite witty,
and that mirth suited her excellently."
"The fact is," said the Duke, carried away by an irresistible
infatuation, "she is bewitching, this little Diana, whom I have seen
playing with her dolls! I reminded her of it, for I did n't wish to
impose upon her as to my age--"
"And to this," continued the Marquis, "I added that you were fibbing to
her, that it was I who had seen the doll, and that you were a child in
the cradle then; but Mlle Diana would n't let me suppose that she saw in
me the material for a Duke. 'No, no, monsieur, the Marquis,' said she,
laughing, 'your brother here is thirty-six years old, I know all about
it.' And this was said with a tone, with an air--"
"That drove me distracted, I admit it," said the Duke, rising and
tossing his mother's spectacles up to the ceiling, catching them again
adroitly; "but, see, all this is folly! Mlle Diana is an artless and
adorable little coquette--a thorough school-girl, a little wild over her
approaching entrance into society, preparing herself in the retirement
of her family circle to keep all heads turned, until at last her own is
turned also; but it 's too soon now! To-morrow morning, after she has
thought it over--And then they will tell her such naughty things about
me!"
"To-morrow night you will see her again," said the Marquis, "so you can
counteract the evil influences, if any such are near her, and I don't
believe there will be. Don't make yourself more interesting than you
really are, brother mine! Besides, the Duchess is on your side, and she
did n't let you go without saying, '_Come again soon. We are at home
every evening: we don't go into society till after Advent_,'--which
means, in good plain French: 'There is still a whole month before my
daughter and god-daughter will see the gay world. It is for you to
please before they are intoxicated with dress and balls. We receive but
few young people now, and it only remains for you to be the youngest,
that is, the most eager and the most fortunate.'"
"Bless me, bless me!" said the Marchioness, "I feel myself in a dream.
My poor Duke! And I never so much as thought of you. Why, I--I imagined
you had won so many women that you would never find one simple enough,
generous enough; wise enough, after all; for here you are, reformed, and
I dare say you will make the Duchess d'Aléria perfectly happy."
"I can answer for that, mother," cried the Duke. "What has made me bad
is suspicion, experience of coquettes and ambitious women; but a
charming young girl, a child of sixteen, who is willing to trust me,
ruined as I am--but I should become a child again myself! And you would
be very happy too, would n't you? And you, Urbain, who were so afraid
you would have to marry?"
"Has he taken a vow of celibacy, then?" asked the Marchioness, looking
at the Marquis with tenderness.
"Not at all," replied Urbain, with some spirit, "but you see there has
been no time lost, as my elder brother still makes such fine conquests!
If you will give me a few months more for reflection--"
"Yes, yes, indeed! there is no real haste," rejoined the Marchioness;
"and since we have such good fortune, I trust in the future--and in you,
my excellent friend!"
She embraced her two sons, evidently intoxicated with joy and hope. She
addressed her children in the most familiar and affectionate way, and
also embraced Caroline, exclaiming, "You good pretty little blonde! you
must rejoice too!"
Caroline had more disposition to rejoice than she cared to admit, even
to herself. Overcome with fatigue after the excitement of the day, she
slept delightfully; with the assurance that the crisis had been
postponed, and that some time, at least, must elapse before she would
see the final and irrevocable obstacle of marriage come between herself
and M. de Villemer.