Leonor was on the watch for the effect of his cure. He saw that evening
that it had succeeded. Rose looked like a shadow, a dolorous shadow.
She forgot to eat, and would sit looking into the void, her hand on
her glass; she did not reply to questions unless they were repeated.
Finally, it was obvious that she had been crying.
"The remedy has been a painful one," said Leonor to himself. "Will she
bear a grudge against the doctor? Perhaps, but the important thing was
to scratch out the unblemished image stamped on her heart. That has
been done. Across M. Hervart's portrait, in all directions, from top to
bottom, from side to side, there is written now: Gratienne, Gratienne,
Gratienne.
"Ah, little swallow of the beach, how precious you have been for me! I
will give you a golden necklet to thank, in your person, the supreme
goddess of hearts. Hervart, I envied you once now I am sorry for you.
I despise you too. You had found love, ingenuous and absolute, you had
found in a single being, the child, the mistress and the wife, you
possessed the smile of innocence and the woman's desire--and you have
left it all for Gratienne and her caresses. But no, no invectives;
worthy civil servant, I thank you. Yes, but am I much better? My
Gratienne is a marquise, to be sure, but I have one just the same. No,
I have ceased to have a Gratienne. I shall be loyal. I will fling my
old burden into the sea, and at your feet, sad maiden, I shall kneel,
heart free."
Nothing happened that evening. Rose preserved her silence, and her
attitude towards Leonor was the same as at other times. But she had
to make a painful effort to preserve her customary amiability. Leonor
wondered, deliberated within himself whether he should speak. Might
he not question her, with a distracted air about the post-card of
Martinvast? "He had thought it was with the other papers, but he
couldn't find it. Perhaps the wind carried it away."
"No, that would be too direct. She may have suspicions; I shall try to
destroy them. I should be lost if she had certainties. But I have no
doubts. She will come of her own accord, she will speak first. And I
shall look as though I didn't understand; she will have to drag out of
me one by one a few ambiguous words."
The days passed. Rose remained in the same melancholy state, ruminating
on her grief. Still she did not speak, and Leonor foresaw the moment,
when, his presence being no longer necessary, he would have to take his
leave. The operations on the outside of the house were coming to an
end, the weather had made digging impossible and Rose had decided that
the interior repairs should be put off till the spring.
Meanwhile Leonor began to suffer in his turn. By living in the same
house as Rose he had felt the love, that had to begin with been
somewhat chimerical, grow and take root within him. From the moment
of their first meeting Rose had aroused in him something like a love
of love. He had first been moved by the generosity of an innocent
heart giving itself with so noble a violence. Next, he had felt that
vague jealousy which all men feel for one another. He had detested M.
Hervart, without being able to keep himself from admiring the spectacle
of his happiness. The desire to supplant him had naturally tormented
Leonor; but it was one of those desires which one feels sure can never
be realised and at which, in lucid moments, one shrugs one's shoulders.
Since chance and his own good management had so much modified the
logical sequence of things to his own profit, Leonor had begun to tell
himself that one should never doubt anything, that anything may happen
and that the impossible is probably the most reasonable thing in the
world.
In these few weeks he had become more serious than ever, and above all
more calm. His egotism began to be capable of long deviations from
its straight course. He knew very well that Rose, if he hazarded a
confession, would reply with indifference, perhaps with anger. His plan
was to risk a few discreet insinuations on some suitable opportunity.
"I might," he reflected, "put on the melancholy, disenchanted look
myself. She is ill, and it would be a case of one sick person seeking
some comfort in the eyes of a companion in misfortune.... Comedy! But
would it be so much of a comedy? Have I found in life all that I looked
for? If I had found it, should I be here dreaming of the capture of a
young girl? It's my right, to do that, since I love; all means will be
fair which put the resources of my imagination at the service of my
heart."
But the opportunity of striking a melancholy, disenchanted attitude
never presented itself. Rose considered him more and more as an
architect, praised his skill in managing the workmen, and paid no
attention to his youth, his cleverness or even to the way he looked at
her--and his glances were often penetrating. There were moments when he
became discouraged. The memory of Hortense came back to him. They had
exchanged a few anodyne letters. She called him to her, but in a weak
voice, and it was in uncertain terms that he announced his next visit.
"Dying love is always melancholy," he thought. "The poem would have
been beautiful if we had said good-bye after Compiègne. We tried to add
a verse, and it has been a failure. It's a pity. But what will become
of her? I still feel some curiosity about her."
At other moments he pictured to himself Gratienne and the elegant
manner of her posturing; that roused him for a time. But the image of
M. Hervart would seem to come and mingle with that of this agreeable
young woman, and the charm would be broken.
Rose's arrival would dispel all these visions. He took a great delight
in seeing her walk, enjoying, though with no idea of libertinage, the
grace of her movements.
Leonor's departure had already been spoken of. One rainy afternoon,
Rose decided to speak. She did it very seriously, without attempting
to dissimulate her unhappiness. Between the two there followed a
conversation which took the tone of friendly confidences.
After long hesitation she put the question for which Leonor had been
waiting with so much anxiety. He had forged several anecdotes with
which Rose would doubtless have been satisfied; but when the moment
came, rather than hesitate and risk inevitable contradictions, he
suddenly decided on a certain degree of frankness.
He said: "The card fell into my hands because I myself have also been
entertained by this person. M. Hervart, I must tell you, was not there;
he did not know and she shall certainly never know. I had no idea
myself that he was the intimate friend of the house. That was why his
name struck me, appended as it was to 'best love.'"
"It was 'love and kisses.'"
"Of course, I remember now." And he repeated, with an intonation that
aggravated the words, and stamped them on the young girl's bruised
heart: "Yes, 'love and kisses.' There were a number of picture
post-cards addressed to the same person; there were many signed with the
same name or an abbreviation: H., Her., Herv. I was bold enough to take
one as a souvenir of my visit. And then ... and then.... May I say it,
Mademoiselle?"
"Say what you like. Nothing can hurt me any more now."
"Very well; I got hold of this card dishonestly, perhaps, but it was
because I was thinking of you.... I was thinking that the man to whom
you had just given your hand loved another woman and publicly admitted
his love for her. That seemed to me bad; I suffered for you--you whose
delicate and generous feelings I had guessed.... Yes, that distressed
me and my idea was, by stealing this proof of a wrong action, to let
you know of it, if circumstances allowed me."
"Then you dropped your pocket-book on purpose?"
"I confess. I did. And if that method had failed, I should have tried
to find another."
"You hurt me a great deal. All the same, I am grateful to you."
She held out her hand; Leonor pressed it respectfully.
"I have given you less pain now than you would have felt later on. It
would have been irremediable then."
"Who knows? I might perhaps have forgiven him afterwards. I shall not
forgive before."
"I know M. Hervart fairly well," said Leonor, in a slightly
hypocritical voice, "but I know that, despite his age, he is
capricious. M. Lanfranc is a spiteful gossip and I won't repeat all
he told me. I know enough, and from certain sources, to make me
congratulate myself on what is perhaps an audacious intervention."
"And what about my father? He has agreed to our marriage."
"Your father lives a long way from Paris. He is kind and trustful. No
doubt his friend promised him to make you happy, and he believed him."
"I believed him too. Alas! he had begun to make me happy already."
"Oh! his intentions weren't bad. M. Hervart is not a bad man. He is
fickle, inconstant, irresolute."
"I see that only too clearly."
"He's an egoist. All men are egoists, for that matter, but there are
degrees. Is he capable of loving a woman whole-heartedly, capable of
consecrating his life to weaving daily joys for her? And yet what could
be a more perfect dream, when one meets in his path a creature who is
worthy of it, one who draws to herself not only love but adoration!"
"I suppose that women like that are rare."
"Those who have known one and desert her are very guilty."
"Say rather that they are very much to be pitied. But not being one of
these women, I didn't ask so much."
"You don't know yourself, Mademoiselle. Oh! if only I had been in M.
Hervart's place."
"What would have happened?" asked Rose, without the least emotion,
without even the least curiosity.
"How I should have loved you!"
"But he loved me a great deal."
"He didn't love you as you should be loved."
"I don't know. How should I know these things? I believed, that was
all. I believed in him."
"He was not worthy of you."
"Perhaps it was I who was unworthy of him, since he loves me no more."
"Unworthy of him, you? Don't you know, then, what this woman is?"
"No, and I don't want to know. Oh! I'm not jealous. I'm humiliated. I
feel as though I had been beaten. Jealous? No. I have stopped loving
and I shall never love again."
"Don't say that."
"Love doesn't come twice."
"But if one is unhappy the first time?"
"One remains unhappy."
"Happiness always has to be looked for. When one looks for it one finds
it."
"Happiness falls from heaven one day; then it goes up again and never
descends any more."
"Don't say that. You will be happy."
"It's finished."
"You will be happy as soon as you meet some one you really love with
all the force of an ardent and devoted heart."
"Don't let's speak of these things. It hurts me."
"I obey you. I will be silent, but not before telling you that that
heart is mine."
Rose looked at him with astonished eyes. She seemed not to understand.
Leonor, very much moved, got up, walked towards her and said, in a
whisper:
"Rose, I love you."
At these words, Rose started, and when Leonor tried to take her hand,
she got up and ran away, crying:
"No, no, no, no."
"How stupid I've been," Leonor said to himself, when he was alone.
"Does one declare one's love like this? Here am I on a level with the
lowest heroes of novels. Think of declaring one's love, saying, 'I am
hot,' to a woman who is cold. What does it mean to her? Words possess
eloquence when the ears expect them. If not, they ring false. They only
incline hearts which have already abdicated their will."
Leonor was very sincerely in love with Rose; hence he was very unhappy.
He imagined, moreover, that M. Hervart was already completely pardoned.
Rose was only awaiting some act of humility to give herself to him
again.
"She is hurt in her pride. Her heart is happy, if happiness consists
in loving much more than in being loved. It is a painful pleasure, but
none the less a pleasure, for her to talk of M. Hervart...."
That evening Leonor had no difficulty in putting on a melancholy and
disenchanted look. He felt these two emotions to perfection, and Rose,
who could not help looking at him, noticed it.
"Can he really be in love with me," she wondered, "----he?"
The next morning, when she woke up, she asked herself the same
dangerous question. Then suddenly, a wave of red mounted to her head.
She had just remembered all the amusements into which her own innocence
and M. Hervart's perverse good-nature had led her.
"I am dishonoured," she said to herself. "Am I a maiden?"
This was the first time that she had felt any shame in calling to mind
the kisses and caresses in which her heart, rather than her body, had
felt pleasure. Though she was unconscious of the transference, the pain
which she still felt had, without changing its nature, changed its
cause.
When Leonor said good-morning she felt herself blushing and immediately
turned her head, to discover an imaginary piece of thread on her skirt.
"So it's to-morrow that we shall have to drive you back," said M. Des
Boys.
"If the garden isn't arranged before the winter," said Rose, "we shall
have to wait till next autumn."
"Obviously," said Leonor; "one can't transplant in the spring. At
least, it's a most delicate operation."
"Well, then, stay and let's finish it off," said M. Des Boys.
Leonor stayed.
"Since I have made a declaration and it has been successful, I shall
now pay my addresses. Can it be that the old methods are the best?"