When Othmar went out from her presence, he was more near to happiness
than he had been in his whole thirty years of life. He was filled
with vivid, palpitating, intoxicated hope. He was passionately in
love, and almost he believed himself beloved in return. As much as
she had allowed to him she had certainly allowed to no living man.
The very force of his passion, which had driven him to scorn the
conventional court which he might have paid her in common with so many
others--the spaniel's place of Geraldine, the slave's place of Boris
Seliedoff--rendered him as willing to set no limits to the sacrifices
which she should be free to exact from him, and he be proud to make.
Only he would never share her, even in nominal union with her lawful
lord. He would be all to her, or nothing.
He loathed the conventional adulteries of his time and of his society;
he sighed, impatiently for the means to prove that the old fearless,
high-handed, single-hearted passion which sees in the whole teeming
world only one life, was not dead, but lived in him for her.
He foresaw all the loss of freedom and of fair repute which would be
entailed on him by the surrender of his life to her; he knew well
that she was a woman who would be no docile companion or unexacting
mistress; he knew that there were in her the habits of dominance, the
instincts of egotism, and that _esprit gouailleur_ which compelled
her, almost despite herself, to jest at what she admired, to ridicule
her better emotions, to make a mockery of the very things which were
the dearest to her. He did not because he loved her become blind to
all that was cold, merciless, and capricious in her nature; he was
conscious that she would never lose her own identity in any passion,
never surrender her mind, even if she gave her person, to any lover; he
knew that she would always remain outside those tropic tempests of love
which she aroused and controlled, and which offended her or flattered
her, according to the mood in which they found her.
He knew all these things, and was aware that his future would not be
one of peace. But he loved her, and agitation, jealousy, suffering
beside her would, he felt, be sweeter to him than any repose beside
another. Even these defects, these dangers, which he clearly perceived,
added to her sorcery for him. It is the mistress who is indifferent
who excites the most vehement desires; and, by reason of his great
fortunes, women had been always to him so facile, so eager, and so
easily won, that the coldness of Nadine Napraxine, which he knew was a
thing of temperament, not of affectation, had but the more irresistible
power over him. The very sense with which she impressed everyone,
himself as well as others, of being no more to be held or relied upon
than the snowflake, to which her world likened her, attracted a man who
had, from his boyhood, been wearied by the adulation, insistence, and
sycophancy of almost all who approached him.
The few days of his probation passed slowly over his head, seeming as
though they would never end. He was restless, feverish, and absent
of mind; Friederich Othmar, who, contrary to all his usual habits,
remained at S. Pharamond, tranquilly ignoring the visible impatience
of his host at his unasked presence, was sorely troubled by the
alternate exhilaration and anxiety of spirit which all the reserve
and self-possession of Othmar himself could not wholly conceal from
the penetration of a person accustomed to divine and dive into the
innermost recesses of the minds of men.
'What, in God's name, is he meditating?' thought his uncle. 'Some
insanity probably. I should believe he was about to disappear from
the world with Madame Napraxine if I were not so persuaded that her
pride and her selfishness will never permit her to commit a folly for
anyone. Morality is nothing to her, but her position is a great deal;
her delight in being insolent will never allow her to lose the power of
being so.'
So accurately did this man of the world read a character which baffled
most persons by its intricacy and its anomalies.
To Friederich Othmar human nature presented many absurdities but few
secrets.
He remained at S. Pharamond, despite his own abhorrence of any place
which was not a capital. He passed his mornings in the consideration
of his correspondence and his telegraphic despatches, but in the later
hours of the day and in the evenings he was that agreeable member of
society whom society had known and courted for so many years; and
beneath his pleasant subacid wit and his admirable manner his acute
penetration was for ever _en vedette_ to penetrate his nephew's purpose
and preoccupation. But a lover, on his guard, will baffle an observer
whom the keenest of statesmen would, in vain, seek to deceive or
mislead, and the Baron learned nothing of Othmar's inmost thoughts.
Although Othmar and Nadine Napraxine met twice or thrice in his
presence at other people's houses, and once at S. Pharamond itself,
where some more choice music was given one evening, the acute blue eyes
of the elder man failed to read the understanding which existed between
them. All he saw was that she appeared to treat Othmar, before others,
with more raillery and more nonchalance than usual. He remarked that
Othmar did not seem either hurt or surprised at this.
'Since he is as much in love with her as ever, he must be aware of some
intimacy between them which renders him comparatively insensible to
her treatment of him in society,' thought the sagacity of his uncle,
who was alarmed and disquieted by a fact which would have reassured
less fine observers--the fact that the master of S. Pharamond did
not once, during fifteen days, cross the mile or two of olive-wood,
orange orchard, and hanging field which alone separated him from La
Jacquemerille.
'No love is so patient but on some promise,' he reflected. He knew
the romantic turn of Othmar's character, and he feared its results as
others would fear the issue of some mortal or hereditary disease. A
week or two previous the ministers then presiding over the fortunes
of France had met, at his little house in the Rue du Traktir, the
representatives of two great Powers, and in the newspapers of the
hour that informal meeting, which had led to many important results,
had been called the Unwritten Treaty of Baron Fritz; and yet, at such
a moment, instead of being entranced with such influence as such a
nickname implied to his House, instead of being occupied with the
power, the might, and the mission of the Othmars, which that gathering
around the library-table in the Rue du Traktir displayed for the
ten thousandth time to the dazzled eyes of suppliant and trembling
Europe, Otho himself could only think of a woman with larger eyes and
smaller hands than usual, but a woman absolutely useless to him in any
ambitions--likely, rather, to be his ruin in all ways!
'I could understand it were she one of the great political forces
of the world. Some women are that, and might so, to us, be of very
high value,' thought Friederich Othmar, 'but Madame Napraxine is as
indifferent to all political movement as if she were made of the ivory
and mother-of-pearl which her skin resembles. If she be anything, she
is that horrible thing a Nihilist, only because Nihilism embodies an
endless and irreconcilable discontent, which finds in her some secret
corner of vague sympathy. But for politics in our meaning of the word
she has the most complete contempt. What did she say to me the other
day? "I am a diplomatist's daughter. I have seen the strings of all
your puppets. I cannot accept a Polichinelle for a Richelieu, as you
all do." And she declared that if there were no statesmen at all, and
no journalists, life would go smoothly; everybody would attend to their
own affairs, the world would be quiet, and there would be no wars. What
but disaster can such a woman with such views bring into the life of
Otho, already paralysed as it is by poco-curantism?'
He asked the question of himself in his own meditations, and could give
himself no answer save one which grieved and alarmed him.
Othmar himself bestowed on his guest but little thought except a
passing impatience that his uncle should have taken that moment, of all
others, to instal himself at S. Pharamond.
He had not the cynicism nor the _insouciance_ of the woman he adored.
He did not attempt any sophisms with his own conscience. He knew that
to do a man dishonour was to do him a violence unkinder, and perhaps
even in a way baser, than to take his life. But he was ready to pledge
himself to that which, unlike her, he still considered was a sin.
He was entirely mastered by a force of passion which she could have
understood by the subtlety of her intelligence, but was not likely ever
to share by any fibre of her nature. He was lost in that whirlpool of
emotion, anticipation, and fear which carried his inner life away on
it, although his outer life remained in appearance calm enough for no
eyes save those of the Baron to penetrate the disguise of his serenity.
Yseulte he had forgotten.
The simple and innocent tenderness which she had momentarily aroused
in him could not hold its place beside the overwhelming passion which
governed him, more than a slender soft-eyed dove can dispute possession
with the fierce, strong-pinioned falcon. Once or twice he saw her and
spoke to her with kindness, but his thoughts were far away from her,
and he did not linger beside her, although each time he chanced to meet
her on the way to her foster-mother's, in lonely lovely country paths,
which might well have tempted him to tarry.
On the thirteenth day of his probation, the priest's gown which, to
please her, he had ordered for the church of S. Pharamond, arrived at
the château, and, his attention being drawn to it by his servants,
he remembered his promise to her. It was the last day of the year. A
passing remembrance of pity came over him as he thought of her; she
was so entirely alone, and she would go to the life of the cloister;
a fancy came to him to do some little thing to give her pleasure; a
mere evanescent breath of innocent impulse, which passed like the cool
breeze of an April day, sweet with scent of field flowers, across the
heated atmosphere of desire and expectation in which his soul was then
living. Conventional etiquette had seldom troubled him greatly; he
had always enjoyed something of that sense which princes have, that
whatever he did the world would condone. A man of the exceptional power
which he possessed can always exercise on his contemporaries more or
less of his own will. Whatever he might have done no one would have
said of him anything more severe than that he was singular.
When he went into Nice that day he chanced to see a very pretty thing,
modern, but admirable in taste and execution, a casket of ivory mounted
on silver, with a little angel in silver on the summit. On its sides
were painted in delicate miniatures reproductions of Fra Angelico
and Botticelli. It was signed by a famous miniaturist, and cost ten
thousand francs. Othmar, to whom the price seemed no more than ten
centimes, bought it at once.
'It will please her,' he thought. 'It shall go to her with the
soutane;' and he sent it with the vestment to Millo, addressed to
Mademoiselle de Valogne. His knowledge of etiquette told him that he
ought to send it, if he sent it at all, through the Duchesse; but he
did not choose to obey etiquette; he had discarded social rules, more
or less, all his life, according to his inclination, and people had not
resented his rebellion simply because he was who he was. He utterly
disobeyed etiquette now, and sent his present direct to Yseulte very
early on the morning of the New Year.
It did not occur to him that he might only run the risk of cruelly
compromising the poor child. He gave hardly more thought to the action
than he would have given to a rose which he might have broken off
its stalk to offer to her. All his heart had gone with the basket of
flowers which he had sent at sunrise to Nadine Napraxine, who allowed
no other offering.
The chances were a million to one that his casket would never
reach its destination without being seen, if not intercepted, by
the governesses; but as it happened, his messenger gave it to the
gatekeeper, and the gatekeeper gave it in turn to the woman who served
her as maid during her stay at Millo, and who was passing through the
gates, on her way home from matins. The woman was attached to her;
indeed, being a religious person herself, considered that Yseulte was
the only creature whose presence saved Millo from the fate of Sodom and
Gomorrah; therefore, pleased that the girl should have pleasure, she
carried the packet straight to her as she rose from her bed; and in the
cold, misty morning of the New Year the first thing that greeted the
astonished eyes of Yseulte was the Coronation of the Virgin, glowing
like a jewel on the side of the ivory casket.
The whole day passed to her in an enchanted rapture.
In the large, idle, careless household there was a general exchange
of congratulations and _étrennes_, and a pleasant tumult of good
wishes and merriment. Blanchette and Toinon danced about before a
pyramid of bonbons and costly playthings, and the Duchesse, descending
at her usual hour, two o'clock, gave and received a multitude of
felicitations, gifts, and visits. 'The most tedious day of the whole
three hundred and sixty-five,' she said pettishly, giving her cheek to
the touch of her children's pale little lips.
In the many occupations and ennuis of the day no one heard or knew
anything of Othmar's present. At noon some bouquets of roses and some
orchids, laid on a plate of old _cloisonné_ enamel, were brought in
his name to Madame de Vannes, but she knew nothing of her cousin's
casket. Meanwhile nothing could hurt Yseulte. The contempt with which
her little cousins received the gifts she had made for them in the
convent, the oblivion to which she was consigned by every one, the
carelessness with which the Duchesse received her timidly-offered good
wishes, the severity with which the governesses forbade her to go out
in such weather to see Nicole or attend Mass in the little church, the
unconcealed ill-temper with which Alain de Vannes flung her a word of
greeting--none of these things had any power to wound her; she scarcely
perceived them; she was lifted up into a world all her own. Unnoticed
in the general _branle-bas_ of the day, she passed the hours, when she
was not at Mass in the chapel, locked safely in her own room, before
her treasure, in a rapt happiness, in a wonder of ecstasy, which were
so intense that she feared they were cardinal sins.
The weather was cold, some snow had even fallen, and the north winds
blew, making all the chilly foreigners gathered on those shores shiver
and grumble like creatures defrauded of their rights; but all the
grey, cheerless, misty landscape, and the fog upon the sea, appeared
more beautiful to her than they had ever done before in its sunshine.
From her window she looked at the towers of S. Pharamond, and on her
table--all her own--was the ivory casket.
The Duchesse de Vannes, waking in the forenoon after the Jour de l'An,
cross, peevish, sleepy, and yet sleepless, which is, in itself, the
most irritating and dispiriting of all human conditions, and morbidly
conscious that, as her little daughter had said, she was beginning
to _baisser un peu_, was in a mood of natural resentment against all
creation in general and the human race in particular, and quite ready
to vent her ill-humour on the first object which offered itself.
That first object was one of the little prim notes by which her
children's instructresses were wont to communicate any terrible event
in the schoolroom, or any entreaty for guidance when Mademoiselle
Blanchette had insisted on riding the wooden horses at a village fair,
or Mademoiselle Toinon had dressed herself up in the smallest groom's
clothes. 'Ne m'ennuyez pas; vous savez vos devoirs' was the only reply
they ever received; but the good women continued to write the notes
as a relief to their consciences. They wrote one now, signed in their
joint names, humbly entreating to be informed if it were the pleasure
of Madame la Duchesse that Mdlle. de Valogne should receive presents
of which the donor was unknown. Mdlle. de Valogne was in possession of
a new and very valuable locket; they believed also that she was in the
habit of going to the gardens of S. Pharamond; they had deemed it their
duty to acquaint Madame la Duchesse, &c., &c.
Blanchette, with the most innocent face in the world, had said to them,
'I have seen the big pearl locket of Yseulte! _Oh, vrai!_ When I am
as old, I will not hide my handsome things as she does. Who gave it
her? Who do you think could give it to her? She is friends with that
gentleman at S. Pharamond--the one that is as rich as M. de Rothschild.
I think he gave it her! Do you tell mamma.'
Blanchette guessed very shrewdly that her father had given the locket;
but she was too wary to offend him. Blanchette was like the little cats
who steal round and round to their mouse by devious paths unseen. She
had alarmed the governesses, and the prim note was the consequence.
When the Duchesse read it, she flung it away in a corner. '_Tas
d'imbéciles_,' she said, contemptuously; then said to one of her maids,
'Request Mdlle. de Valogne to come hither.'
Yseulte was presented in a fortuitous moment as the whipping-boy on
whom could be spent all that useless irritation which she could not
spend on the real offenders, her ineffective chloral, her increasing
wrinkles, and the indifference of Raymond de Prangins.
'Mamma is always cross,' the wise little Blanchette had reflected.
'She is always angry, even for nothing. That great baby will get a
lecture, and she will be sure to say it was papa; she always tells the
truth--such a simpleton!--and papa will hate her for ever and for ever!'
Then Blanchette made a _pied de nez_ all by herself in her little
bedroom: when you were a child you could not have many things your
own way, but you could spoil other people's things very neatly with a
little pat here, a little poke there, if you looked all the while like
your picture by Baudry, an innocent cherub with sweet smiling eyes, who
could not have made a _pied de nez_ to save your life. Blanchette had
already acquired the knowledge that this was how the world was most
easily managed.
When Yseulte was summoned to her cousin's presence, the girl was
startled to see how old she looked, for it was scarcely noon, and the
handsome face which 'Cri-Cri' was wont to present to her own world had
scarcely received its finishing touches from the various embellishing
_petits secrets_ shut up in their silver boxes and their china pots,
which were strewn about under the great Dresden-framed mirror in front
of her.
'Good-day,' she said, with irritation already in her voice, as Yseulte
timidly kissed her hand. 'Is this true what they tell me, that you
receive presents without my knowledge and consent? Do you not know that
it is perfectly _inconvenable_? Are you not taught enough of the world
in your convent to be aware that a young girl cannot do such things
without being disgraced eternally? What is it you have accepted? Is it
a jewel? Can you realise the enormity of your action?----' she paused,
in some irritation and uncertainty. 'Well, why do you not speak? Can
you excuse yourself? What is it you have taken? From whom have you
taken it? My people have told me you have a new and valuable jewel and
refuse to say who gave it.'
'My cousin, M. le Duc, gave it me,' said Yseulte. 'He said that I was
to tell you if you asked me, but not anyone else.'
She spoke frankly, without any hesitation. The Duchesse stared at her,
half rose in her amazement; her face was dark with anger for a moment,
then cleared into a sudden laughter.
'My husband!' she echoed. 'A _fillette_ like you! And they say there
are no miracles now! Do you absolutely mean to say that Alain gave you
a jewel?----'
'He was so good as to give me a locket--yes,' murmured Yseulte,
conscious that her cousin was angry, insolent, and derisive, and afraid
that the Duc would be irritated at the issue of his kindness to her.
'Pray, has he given you anything else?' echoed Madame de Vannes. 'Has
he given you the diamonds he had bought for Mdlle. Rubis, or the
_coupé_ from Bender's which he meant for _la grande_ Laure?'
'He has not given me anything else,' answered Yseulte, to whom these
terrible names conveyed no meaning.
'Where is this locket? Show it me.'
'It is in my room. Shall I fetch it?'
'No, no. It does not matter. You can send it me. I will send Agnès for
it. The idea of Alain having even looked at you!--it makes one laugh;
it is too absurd.'
She continued to laugh, but the laughter did not convey to the ear of
Yseulte any impression either that she was pardoned or that her cousin
was amused. It was a laugh expressive of irony, irritation, wonder,
contempt, rancour, all in one.
'You should not have taken it. You should have told me,' continued
the Duchesse. 'To be sure, he is your cousin. But it is not proper to
take a man's gifts. It is not becoming. It is too forward. It is even
immodest. Is that the sort of thing the Dames de Ste. Anne have taught
you? Surely you might have known better.'
These phrases she uttered in a staccato rapid succession, as if she
thought little of what she said; she was indeed thinking as the girl
stood before her:
'What a skin! What shoulders! What a throat! What a thing it is to be
sixteen! Why did not _le bon Dieu_ make all that last longer with us?
It goes too soon; so horribly soon; after one is five-and-twenty it
is all one can do to make up decently. If it were only the complexion
which went it would not matter; that one can easily arrange; but it
is the features that change; they grow out or they grow in; the mouth
gets thin or the cheeks get broad; the very lines alter somehow, and we
cannot alter that; and then to make oneself up is as much trouble as
to build a house, and the house has to be built anew every day!--it is
horribly hard--and yet one has compensations, revenges; it is not those
children whom men care to look at though they are fresh as roses; at
least not usually. Alain, I suppose, does--what can he mean by giving
her a medallion?'
While these thoughts ran through her mind, she was staring hard at
Yseulte through her eyeglass, as though they had never met before then.
The girl had coloured scarlet at the epithet 'immodest,' but it had
made her a little angry, with the righteous indignation of innocence.
Respect kept her mute, but her face spoke for her.
'Alain was right; she is really handsome,' reflected the Duchesse.
She was herself only eight-and-twenty, but in the world as on the
racecourse it is the pace that kills; and before she had passed through
all those arduous processes which she had rightly compared to building
a house anew every day, she knew very well that she looked cruelly old,
though after two o'clock in the day she was still one of the great
beauties of France.
She had been immersed in pleasures, pastimes, and excitements from
the day of her marriage; she had lived in a crowd, she had gambled
not a little, and she had had certain intrigues, of whose dangers
she had at times a vivid and anxious consciousness, for the Duc was
indifferent but not base, and might any day be roused if he came to be
aware that men laughed at him more than he liked. As a rule, she and
he understood each other very well, and tacitly condoned each other's
indiscretions; but there might come a time when he would break that
convenient compact, as she felt disposed now to resent his admiration
of her young cousin. On the whole, perhaps, she mused, she had been
wrong to do so; she would let the girl keep his present; he might, if
she provoked him, insist that Raymond de Prangins should leave Millo.
All these reflections occurred to her during that one minute in which
her eyeglass watched the indignation rise in Yseulte's face.
'Have you seen M. de Vannes alone?' she resumed, with a sharpness in
her voice, due rather to her own sense of the girl's beauty than to her
knowledge of her husband's admiration for it.
'Now and then,' said Yseulte without hesitation. 'He has come into the
schoolroom----'
'For a lesson in A B C, I suppose?--or a cup of Brown's green tea?'
said the Duchesse contemptuously. 'Well, he may _conter ses fleurettes
ailleurs_. I should have thought he had had better taste than to begin
in his own house: however,' she continued, interrupting herself, as she
remembered that she was suggesting, 'I do not suppose it is you who
are to blame. But another time, ask my permission before you accept
anything from anybody. I will not deprive you of the Duc's gift. He is
in a manner your cousin--your guardian--of course he meant very kindly,
but another time remember to come to me. You will tell the Duc that I
said so.'
'Good heavens!' she was thinking, 'who would have supposed that Alain
had a taste for a creature like that, half a saint and half a baby? To
be sure, her eyes are superb, and the throat and bosom--what beautiful
lines they have; why did they send her here? She shall go back next
week. The wickedness of the thing would charm him; the nearer it was
to a crime, the more of a _clou_ it would be. To play Faust under the
respectable shade of Brown's teapot and the big dictionaries would be
sure to enthral him, out of its very drollery--men are made like that.'
Then a remembrance of S. Pharamond passed over her, and she said aloud,
with an unkind sarcasm in her voice:
'Perhaps you have other friends beside M. de Vannes? Pray tell me if
you have. I fully appreciate the effects of the education which the
Dames de Ste. Anne have given you.'
Yseulte coloured scarlet, and the Duchesse's eyes scanned her face as
Blanchette's had done, without mercy.
'Pray tell me,' she continued, with a chill dignity, which was in sharp
contrast with the sarcasm and railing of her previous manner. 'You will
be so good as to remember that I stand in the place of your mother;
your indiscretions are not alone painful to me, but compromising to me.
Is it true that you are intimate with Otho Othmar?'
'He has been kind to me,' murmured Yseulte, an agony at her heart and
the hot tears standing in her eyes. She did not understand enough of
the world to justify herself by the fact that the offender had been
presented to her by her cousin herself; nor, if she had done so, would
the position she stood in towards Madame de Vannes have allowed her to
use such a justification without apparent impertinence. For eight years
she had owed everything to the Duchesse.
'Kind to you!' echoed her cousin, 'a most fortuitous phrase, but not
one that young girls can employ except to their own ridicule and
injury. Pray how has he been kind to you? has _he_ given you a locket?'
Yseulte might easily have told a lie; no one knew of the casket, no one
could tell of it; she loved it more dearly than anything she had ever
possessed. But she had been taught in her childhood that falsehood was
cowardice, and the courage of the de Valogne was in her; therefore she
answered, with an unsteady voice indeed, but with entire truthfulness,
'He has given me a very beautiful box, it is made of ivory and painted,
it came yesterday----'
Madame de Vannes burst into another laugh, which jarred on the child's
ear:
'Really,' she cried, relapsing into the manner most natural to her,
'you begin well! Othmar and my husband! and you are not quite sixteen
yet, and we all thought you such a little demure saint in your grey
clothes! Send the casket to me. You cannot receive presents in that
way. From your cousin, _passe encore_, but from a man like Othmar--you
might as well go and sup with him at Bignon's. Good heavens! What are
Schemmitz and Brown about that they have let you meet him? Where have
you seen him? how have you become intimate with him?'
Yseulte had become very pale. She had done her duty; done what honour,
truth, obedience, and gratitude all required; but it had cost her a
great effort, and she would lose the casket.
'I have only seen him three times,' she said, with her colour changing;
and she went on to tell the story of her visit to his gardens, of his
conversation with her on the seashore, of the priest's soutane, and of
their meeting at the house of Nicole. It was a very simple inoffensive
little story, but it hurt her greatly to tell it; cost her quite as
much as it would have done Madame de Vannes to unfold all her manifold
indiscretions in full confession before a _conseil de famille_.
'He has been very kind to me,' she said timidly, as she finished her
little tale, 'and if--if--if you would only let me keep the casket and
take it to Faïel?'
The Duchesse laughed once more:
'You do not care to keep the Duc's locket--how flattering to him!
Really, _fillette_, you are sagacious betimes; I would never have
believed you such a cunning little cat! Did you learn all that at
the convent? you convent-girls are more _rusées_ than so many rats!
Othmar, of all men of the world! My dear, you might as well wish for
an emperor. There is not a marriageable woman in Europe who does not
sigh for Othmar! He is so enormously rich! There is no one else rich
like that; all the other financiers have a tribe of people belonging to
them. "The family" is everywhere, at Paris, at Vienna, at Berlin, at
London, and have as many branches as the oak; but Othmar is absolutely
alone--for old Baron Fritz does not count--he is absolutely alone,
that is what is unique in him. Whoever marries him will be the most
fortunate woman in Europe. Yes, I say it advisedly, it is fortune that
is power nowadays; our day is over; we do not even lead society any
longer.'
The colour had rushed back into Yseulte's face; the Duchesse's words
tortured her as only a very young and sensitive creature can be
tortured by an indelicate and cruel suspicion. 'I never thought, I
never meant,' she murmured. 'You know, my cousin, I am dedicated to the
religious life; you cannot suppose that I--I----' The words choked her.
'_Ne pleurnichez pas, de grâce!_' said the Duchesse impatiently. 'I
have no doubt you have taken all kinds of impossibilities into your
head, girls are always so foolish; but you may be sure that the gift of
the casket means nothing--nothing. Othmar is always giving away, right
and left; most very rich men are mean, but he is not. It was a wrong
thing, an impertinent thing, for him to do, and it must be returned to
him instantly; but if you imagine you have made any impression upon
him, I can assure you you are very mistaken, he only thinks of Nadine
Napraxine.'
Yseulte remained very pale; her eyes were cast down, her lips were
pressed together. She had done her duty and told the truth, but she
was not recompensed.
The Duchesse rang for her maids. To the one who answered the summons,
she said: 'Accompany Mdlle. de Valogne to her room, and bring me a
casket she will give you, which is to be sold for the Little Sisters of
the Poor. _Va-t'-en, Yseulte._'
She put out her hand carelessly, and the girl bent over her.
'My cousin! I have never seen him but three times,' she murmured
again. Her face was very pale; she had been wounded profoundly by the
Duchesse's words, even though their full meaning was not known to her.
Madame de Vannes laughed again; then, with an assumption of dignity,
which she could take on at will, said coldly:
'Once was too much. Never accuse accident; no one believes in it.
Remember also, that as one vowed to the service of Heaven, it is
already sin in you if you harbour one earthly thought. Go, and send me
the casket.'
Without another word Yseulte curtsied and withdrew from her presence.
When the maid returned, she brought her mistress the ivory casket; but
inside it was the Duc's medallion. Madame de Vannes laughed yet again
as she saw.
'The little obstinate!' she murmured. 'It is not often that Alain
throws pearls, or anything else away. And what a casket! Heavens! it is
fit for a wedding gift to a queen. Is it possible that Othmar---- No,
it is not possible; he would never think of a child like that. Perhaps
he did it to rouse Nadine. What a cunning little pole-cat these nuns
have sent me!'
But a kind of respect awakened in her towards her young cousin. A girl
who could charm Alain de Vannes and Othmar was not to be dismissed
scornfully as a novice and a baby. The Duchesse drew some note-paper to
her, and wrote a little letter to her neighbour, in which she expressed
herself very admirably, with dignity and grace, as the guardian of
a motherless child who was dedicated to the service of Heaven. She
suggested, without actually saying so, that he had failed in reverence
towards Heaven, and towards the Maison de Vannes and the Maison de
Creusac, in permitting himself to offer gifts to Mdlle. de Valogne;
she recalled to him, without any positive expression of the sort, that
a young girl of noble descent could not be approached with gifts as a
young actress might be, and that if any had been offered they should
have, at least, been offered through herself.
She was honestly irritated with Othmar for having thus been wanting,
as she considered, in full respect for those great families from which
Yseulte de Valogne had sprung. She was excessively angry with her
children's governesses, whose negligence had rendered it possible for
the girl to wander about alone, and she gave them a short but very
terrible audience in her dressing-room; yet, on the whole, the affair
amused her a little, and the high-breeding in her made her do justice
to the honour which had forced her young cousin to tell unasked all the
truth.
Later on she had a little scene with her husband, half comic, half
tragic, in which they flung the _tu quoque_ liberally one at the other,
apropos of many vagaries less innocent than his fancy for Yseulte
de Valogne; but she did not tell him about Othmar's casket, for she
reasoned, with admirable knowledge of men's natures, that they cared
so much more if they thought any one else cared too.
Meanwhile Yseulte, having given the casket into the hands of the maid
without a word or a sign of regret, locked herself in, threw herself on
her bed, and sobbed as piteously as though the magic box had been that
of Pandora, and bore all hope away within it.