“If that is so, you will not refuse me a great favor. Carried away by
her grief at seeing her father marry again, Miss Ville-Handry hates me.
Will you promise me to use your influence in trying to persuade her to
change her disposition towards me?”
Never had honest Daniel Champcey been tried so hard. He answered
diplomatically,--
“I am afraid you overestimate my influence.”
She looked at him suddenly with such a sharp and penetrating glance that
he felt almost startled, and then said,--
“I do not ask of you to succeed, only promise me upon your honor that
you will do your best, and I shall be very much obliged to you. Will you
give me that promise?”
Could he do so? The situation was so exceptional, Daniel had at all
cost to lull the enemy into security for a time, and for a moment he was
inclined to pledge his honor. Nay, more than that, he made an effort to
do it. But his lips refused to utter a false oath.
“You see,” resumed Miss Brandon very coldly, “you see you were deceiving
me.”
And, turning away from him, she hid her face in her hands, apparently
overcome by grief, and repeated in a tone of deep sorrow,--
“What a disgrace! Great God! What a humiliation!”
But suddenly she started up again, her face bright with a glow of hope,
and cried out,--
“Well, be it so. I like it all the better so. A mean man would not have
hesitated at an oath, however determined he might have been not to keep
it. Whilst you--I can trust you; you are a man of honor, and all is not
lost yet. Whence comes your aversion? Is it a question of money, the
count’s fortune?”
“Miss Brandon!”
“No, it is not that, I see. I was quite sure of it. What, then, can it
be? Tell me, sir, I beseech you! tell me something.”
What could he tell her? Daniel remained silent.
“Very well,” said Sarah, clinching her teeth convulsively. “I
understand.”
She made a supreme effort not to break out in sobs; and big tears,
resembling diamonds of matchless beauty, rolled slowly down from between
her long, trembling eyelashes.
“Yes,” she said, “I understand. The atrocious calumnies which my enemies
have invented have reached you; and you have believed them. They have,
no doubt, told you that I am an adventuress, come from nowhere; that my
father, the brave defender of the Union, exists only in the painting
in my parlor; that no one knows where my income comes from; that
Thorn, that noble soul, and Mrs. Brian, a saint upon earth, are vile
accomplices of mine. Confess, you have been told all that, and you have
believed it.”
Grand in her wrath, her cheeks burning, her lips trembling, she rose,
and added in a tone of bitter sarcasm,--
“Ah! When people are called upon to admire a noble deed, they refuse
to believe, they insist upon inquiring before they admire, they examine
carefully. But, if they are told something bad, they dispense with that
ceremony; however monstrous the thing may appear, however improbable it
may sound, they believe it instantly. They would not touch a child; but
they do not hesitate to repeat a slander which dishonors a woman, and
kills her as surely as a dagger. If I were a man, and had been told
that Miss Brandon was an adventuress, I would have been bent upon
ascertaining the matter. America is not so far off. I should have soon
found the ten thousand men who had served under Gen. Brandon, and they
would have told me what sort of a man their chief had been. I should
have examined the oil-regions of Pennsylvania; and I would have learned
there that the petroleum-wells belonging to M. Elgin, Mrs. Brian, and
Miss Brandon produce more than many a principality.”
Daniel was amazed at the candor and the boldness with which this young
girl approached the terrible subject. To enable her to speak with such
energy and in such a tone, she must either be possessed of unsurpassed
impudence, or--he had to confess it--be innocent.
Overcome by the effort she had made, she had sunk back upon the sofa,
and continued in a lower tone of voice, as if speaking to herself,--
“But have I a right to complain? I reap as I have sown. Alas! Thorn has
told me so often enough, and I would not believe him. I was not twenty
years old when I came to Paris, after my poor father’s death. I had been
brought up in America, where young girls know no other law but that of
their own consciences. They tell us at home, all the time, that it is
our first duty to be truthful. In France, young girls are taught that
hypocrisy is their first duty. We are taught not to blush, except
when we have done wrong; they are taught all the appearances of false
prudishness. In France, they work hard to save appearances; with us,
we aim at reality. In Philadelphia, I did every thing I chose to do,
provided I did not think it was wrong. I thought I could do the same
here. Poor me! I did not count upon the wickedness of the world. I went
out alone, on horseback, in the morning. I went alone to church, to pray
to God. If I wanted any thing for my toilet, I sent for the carriage,
and drove out, alone, to buy it. When a man spoke to me, I did not feel
bound to cast down my eyes; and, if he was amusing and witty, I laughed.
If a new fashion pleased me, I adopted it. I committed all these crimes.
I was young, rich, popular. These were as many more crimes. And after I
had been here a year, they said that Malgat, that wretch”--
She jumped up as she said this, ran up to Daniel, and, seizing him by
the hands, she said,--
“Malgat! Have they talked to you about Malgat?”