Three days later, Thérèse, having decided to borrow a sum which would

enable her to take a long journey, to leave Paris in earnest,--for such

a succession of agitations and hurricanes was spoiling her work and her

life,--went to the Quai aux Fleurs and bought a white rose-bush, which

she sent to Laurent without giving her name to the messenger. It was her

farewell. On returning home, she found there a white rose-bush, sent

without a name: that was Laurent's farewell. They both intended to go

away--they both remained. The incident of the white rose-bushes moved

Laurent to tears. He hurried to Thérèse and found her finishing her

packing. Her place was taken in the mail-coach for six o'clock that

evening. Laurent's place also was taken in the same coach. Both had

thought of visiting Italy again alone. "Well, let us go together!" he

cried.

"No, I am not going," said she.

"Thérèse, it's of no use for us to plan! this horrible bond that

connects us will never be broken. It is madness to think of it. My love

has withstood everything that can crush a sentiment, everything that can

break a heart. You must love me as I am, or else we must die together.

Are you willing to love me?"

"It would be of no use for me to be willing to do it; I cannot," said

Thérèse. "I feel that my heart is exhausted; I think that it is dead."

"Very well; are you willing to die?"

"It is a matter of indifference to me how soon I die, as you know; but I

do not wish you to live or die with me."

"Ah! yes, you believe in the eternity of the _ego_! You don't want to

meet me again in the other life! Poor martyr! I can understand that."

"We shall not meet again, Laurent, I am sure. Each soul goes toward its

centre of attraction. Repose summons me, while you will always and

everywhere be attracted by the tempest."

"That is to say that _you_ have not earned hell!"

"Nor have you earned it. You will be in another heaven, that is all!"

"What is there left for me in this world, if you leave me?"

"Glory, when you no longer seek love."

Laurent became pensive. Several times he repeated mechanically:

"Glory!"--then he knelt in front of the hearth, poking the fire as he

was accustomed to do when he wished to be alone with himself. Thérèse

went out to countermand the orders for her journey. She was well aware

that Laurent would have followed her.

When she returned, she found him very calm and cheerful.

"This world is only a dull comedy," he said; "but why seek to rise above

it, since we do not know what there may be higher up, or even if there

is anything at all? Glory, at which you laugh in your sleeve, I know

very well----"

"I do not laugh at other people's glory."

"What other people?"

"Those who believe in it and love it."

"God knows whether I believe in it, Thérèse, or whether I snap my

fingers at it as a mere farce! But one can love a thing of which he

knows the trifling value. You love a balky horse that breaks your neck,

the tobacco that poisons you, a wretched play that makes you laugh, and

glory, which is only a masquerade! Glory! what is glory to a living

artist? Newspaper articles that tear you to pieces and make people talk

about you, and laudatory articles that no one reads, for the public is

amused only by bitter criticisms, and when its idol is praised to the

skies it ceases to care for him at all. And then the groups that gather

about a painted canvas, and the monumental orders which fill you with

delight and ambition, and leave you half-dead with fatigue, with your

ideal unrealized. And then--the Institute--a collection of men who

detest you, and who themselves----"

Here Laurent indulged in the most intensely bitter sarcasms, and

concluded his dithyramb by saying:

"No matter! such is the glory of this world! We spit upon it, but we

cannot do without it, since there is nothing better!"

Their conversation was prolonged until evening, satirical,

philosophical, and becoming gradually altogether impersonal. To look at

them and listen to them, one would have said that they were two friends,

naturally peaceable, who had never quarrelled. This strange situation

had occurred several times in the midst of their fiercest storms: when

their hearts were silent, their minds still understood each other and

agreed.

Laurent was hungry, and asked Thérèse to give him some dinner.

"What about the coach?" she said. "It is almost time for it to start."

"But you are not going?"

"I shall go if you stay."

"Very well; then I will go, Thérèse. Adieu!"

He left the house abruptly, and returned an hour later.

"I missed the mail," he said; "I will go to-morrow. Haven't you dined

yet?"

In her preoccupation Thérèse had forgotten her dinner, which was on

the table.

"My dear Thérèse," he said, "grant me one last favor; come to dine

somewhere with me, and let us go to some play this evening. I want to be

your friend once more, just your friend. That will cure me and be the

salvation of both of us. Try me. I will not be jealous, nor exacting,

nor even amorous any more. Let me tell you--I have another mistress, a

pretty little woman in society, as slender as a linnet, and as white and

dainty as a sprig of lily of the valley. She is a married woman. I am a

friend of her lover, whom I am playing false. I have two rivals, two

deadly perils to defy every time that I obtain a _tête-à-tête_. That

is very exciting, and therein lies the whole secret of my love. Thus my

passions and my imagination are satisfied there; my heart alone and a

free exchange of ideas are what I offer you."

"I refuse them," said Thérèse.

"What! you are vain enough to be jealous of a man whom you no longer

love?"

"Surely not! I no longer have my life to give, and I cannot understand

such a friendship as you ask of me, without exclusive devotion. Come to

see me as my other friends do, I am perfectly willing; but do not ask me

for any further private intimacy, even apparent."

"I understand, Thérèse; you have another lover!"

Thérèse shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. He was dying to have

her boast to him of some caprice, as he had just boasted to her. His

shattered strength was reviving and longed for a fight. He awaited

anxiously her response to his challenge, ready to overwhelm her with

reproaches and disdain, and perhaps to inform her that he had invented

that mistress of his to induce her to betray herself. He could not

understand Thérèse's inertness. He preferred to think that she hated

him and deceived him, rather than that he was simply annoying or

indifferent to her.

She tired him out by her silence.

"Good-night," he said at last. "I am going to dine, and then to the

Opera, if I am not too drunk."

Thérèse, left alone, explored for the thousandth time the fathomless

depths of this mysterious destiny. What did it lack of being one of the

most beautiful of human destinies? Reason.

"But what is reason?" Thérèse asked herself, "and how can genius exist

without it? Is it because it is such a mighty force that it can kill

reason and still survive it? Or is reason simply an isolated faculty,

whose union with the other faculties is not always necessary?"

She fell into a sort of metaphysical reverie. It had always seemed to

her that reason was an assemblage of ideas, and not a single detail;

that all the faculties of a perfectly constituted being borrowed

something from it and supplied something to it in turn; that it was at

once the means and the end; that no masterpiece could evade its law, and

that no man could have any real value after he had resolutely trampled

reason under foot.

She reviewed in her mind her memories of the great artists of all time,

and also of contemporary artists. Everywhere she saw the rigid rules of

the true associated with the dream of the beautiful, and yet everywhere

there were exceptions, terrifying anomalies, radiant yet blighted faces

like Laurent's. Aspiration to the sublime was a disease of Thérèse's

epoch and environment. It was a touch of fever which took possession of

youth and caused it to despise the normal conditions of happiness as

well as the ordinary duties of life. By the force of events, Thérèse

was hurled, without desiring or anticipating it, into that awful circle

of the human hell. She had become the companion, the intellectual half,

of one of those sublime madmen, one of those unreasoning geniuses; she

was a witness of the endless agony of Prometheus, of the recurrent

frenzies of Orestes; she felt the recoil of those indescribable

sufferings, with no comprehension of their cause, and with no power to

find a remedy for them.

And yet God still dwelt in those rebellious, tormented souls, for

Laurent became enthusiastic and kindly once more at certain hours, and

the pure well-spring of sacred inspiration was not dried up; his talent

was not exhausted, perhaps he still had a glorious future before him.

Should such a man be abandoned to the assaults of delirium or to the

stupor of fatigue?

Thérèse, we say, had skirted that abyss too often not to have been

made giddy by it more than once. Her own talent as well as her own

character had well-nigh become involved, without her knowledge, in that

desperate path. She had known that exaltation of suffering which shows

one the miseries of life on a large scale, and which hovers on the

boundaries between the real and the imaginary; but, by virtue of a

natural reaction, her mind aspired henceforth to the _true_, which is

neither one nor the other, neither prosaic fact nor the uncurbed ideal.

She felt that there the beautiful was to be found, and that, in order to

resume the logical life of the soul, she must seek to live a simple and

dignified material life. She reproached herself sternly for having been

false to herself so long; and a moment later she reproached herself as

sternly for thinking too much of her own lot, in face of the extreme

peril by which Laurent was still threatened.

With all its voices, with the voice of friendship as well as that of

public opinion, society called to her to rise and resume possession of

herself. That was her duty, according to the world, a term which in such

case is equivalent to general order, the interest of society: "Follow

the straight road; let those perish who wander from it."--And religion

added: "The virtuous and the good for everlasting salvation, the blind

and the rebellious for hell!"--Does it matter little to the wise man,

pray, that the fool perishes?

Thérèse was shocked at that conclusion.

"On the day that I deem myself the most perfect, the most useful and the

best creature on earth," she said to herself, "I will consent to a

sentence of death against all others; but if that day does not come,

shall I not be more mad than all the other madmen? Back, madness of

vanity, the mother of selfishness! Let us continue to suffer for others

than ourselves!"

It was almost midnight when she rose from the chair upon which she had

sunk, crushed and spiritless, four hours before. Someone rang. A

messenger brought a box and a note. The box contained a domino and a

black satin mask. The note contained these words in Laurent's

handwriting: _Senza veder, senza parlar_.

Without seeing or speaking to each other!--What was the key to that

enigma? Did it mean that she should go to the masked ball to amuse him

by a commonplace intrigue? Did he mean to try to fall in love with her

without knowing her? Was it the fancy of a poet, or the insult of a

libertine?

Thérèse sent away the box, and fell back in her chair; but a feeling

of uneasiness made it impossible for her to reflect. Ought she not to

try every expedient to rescue that victim from his infernal aberrations?

"I will go," she said, "I will follow him step by step. I will see, I

will listen to his life away from me, I will learn how much truth there

is in the villainous stories he tells me, whether he loves evil

innocently or with affectation, whether he really has depraved tastes or

is only seeking to distract his thoughts. Knowing all that I have

hitherto tried not to know of him and his vile associates, all that I

have striven with disgust to keep from his memory and my imagination,

perhaps I shall discover some weak spot, some pretext for curing him of

this vertigo."

She remembered the domino Laurent had sent her, although she had barely

glanced at it. It was of satin. She sent for one of Naples silk, donned

a mask, carefully covered her hair, supplied herself plentifully with

bows of ribbon, in order to change her appearance more completely in

case Laurent should suspect her identity, and, sending for a carriage,

she set out, alone and resolutely, for the Opera ball.

She had never attended one of those functions. The mask was stifling,

intolerable to her. She had never tried to disguise her voice, yet she

did not wish that her identity should be divined by any one. She glided

silently through the corridors, seeking the deserted corners when she

was tired of walking, but going on if any one was coming toward her,

always pretending to have a definite goal, and succeeding better than

she had hoped in remaining alone and unmolested in that hustling crowd.

It was the time when there was no dancing at the Opera ball, and when

the only disguise admitted was the black domino. There was therefore a

multitude, sombre and solemn in appearance, but probably intent for the

most part upon intrigues as immoral as the bacchanalian revels of other

functions of the sort, but of a most imposing aspect when seen as a

whole from above. And at intervals a blaring orchestra would suddenly

begin to play a frantic quadrille, as if the management, at odds with

the police, wished to induce the public to disregard the prohibition;

but no one seemed to think of such a thing. The black swarm continued to

move slowly and whisper amid the uproar, which ended with a pistol-shot,

a strange, fantastic finale, which seemed powerless to dispel the vision

of that dismal festival.

For some moments Thérèse was so impressed by the spectacle that she

forgot where she was, and fancied herself in the world of depressing

dreams. She looked for Laurent, and did not find him.

She ventured into the _foyer_, where the best-known men in Paris were

gathered, without masks or other disguises, and, having made the circuit

of the room, she was about to retire, when she heard her name mentioned

in a corner. She turned and saw the man she had loved so well, seated

between two masked damsels, whose voices and accent had that indefinable

combination of limpness and sharpness which betrays exhaustion of the

senses and bitterness of spirit.

"Well," said one of them, "so you have abandoned your famous Thérèse

at last? It seems that she deceived you in Italy, and that you would not

believe it."

"He began to suspect it," rejoined the other, "on the day that he

succeeded in driving out his fortunate rival."

Thérèse was mortally wounded to see the painful romance of her life

laid open to such interpretations, and even more to see Laurent smile,

tell those creatures that they did not know what they were saying, and

change the subject, with no trace of indignation and apparently without

noticing or being disturbed by what he heard. Thérèse would never have

believed that he was not even her friend. Now she was sure of it! She

remained, and continued to listen; her mask was glued to her face by a

cold perspiration.

And yet Laurent said nothing to those girls that all the world might not

have overheard. He chattered away, amused by their prattle, and answered

them like a well-bred man. They were empty-headed creatures, and more

than once he yawned, making a slight effort to conceal it. Nevertheless,

he remained there, caring little whether he was seen of all men in such

company, letting them pay court to him, yawning with fatigue and not

with real _ennui_, absent-minded but affable, and talking to those

chance companions as if they were women of the best society, almost dear

and genuine friends, associated with pleasant memories of joys which one

can avow.

This lasted fully a quarter of an hour. Thérèse still held her place.

Laurent's back was turned to her. The bench on which he was sitting

stood in the recess of a closed glass door. When the groups wandering

along the outer corridors stopped against that door, the black coats and

dominos made an opaque background and the glass became a sort of black

mirror, in which Thérèse's face was reflected unknown to her. Laurent

glanced at her several times without thinking of her; but eventually the

immobility of that masked face made him uneasy, and he said to his

companions, pointing her out to them in the black mirror:

"Don't you call that mask ghastly?"

"Do we frighten you, pray?"

"No, not you; I know what sort of a nose you have under that bit of

satin; but to have a face that you can't divine, that you don't know,

glaring at you like that! I am going away, I have had enough of it."

"That is to say," they retorted, "that you have had enough of us."

"No," he said, "I have had enough of the ball. It's stifling here. Don't

you want to come to see the snow fall? I am going to the Bois de

Boulogne."

"Why, that's enough to kill you!"

"Ah! yes. Is there such a thing as death? Are you coming?"

"Faith, no!"

"Who wants to go to the Bois de Boulogne in a domino with me?" he asked,

raising his voice.

A group of black figures swooped down upon him like a flock of bats.

"How much is it worth?" said one.

"Will you paint my portrait?" said another.

"Are we to go on foot or on horseback?" queried a third.

"A hundred francs a head," he replied, "just to walk about in the snow

by moonlight. I will follow you at a distance. I want to see the effect.

How many of you are there?" he added, after a moment. "Ten! that's

hardly enough. But no matter, off we go!"

Three remained behind, saying:

"He hasn't a sou. We shall get inflammation of the lungs, and that will

be all."

"You stay behind?" he said. "Seven left! Bravo! a cabalistic number, the

seven deadly sins! _Vive Dieu_! I was afraid I should be bored, but

there's an idea that saves me."

"Bah!" said Thérèse, "a mere artist's whim! He remembers that he is a

painter. Nothing is lost."

She followed the strange party as far as the peristyle, to make sure

that the fantastic idea was carried out; but the cold made the most

determined draw back, and Laurent allowed himself to be persuaded to

abandon the plan. He was asked to substitute a supper for the party.

"Faith," he said, "you are nothing but timid, selfish creatures, just

exactly like virtuous women. I am going back into respectable society.

So much the worse for you."

But they led him back to the _foyer_, and there ensued between him and

other young men who were friends of his, and a party of shameless

hussies, such a lively conversation, coupled with such fine projects,

that Thérèse, overcome by disgust, withdrew, saying to herself that it

was too late. Laurent loved vice; she could do nothing more for him.

Did Laurent really love vice? No: the slave does not love the yoke and

the lash; but, when he is a slave through his own fault, when he has

allowed his liberty to be stolen from him for lack of a day of courage

or prudence, he becomes accustomed to slavery and all its sorrows: he

justifies that profound saying of the ancients, that, when Jupiter

reduces a man to that condition, he takes away half of his soul.

When bodily slavery was the awful fruit of victory, Heaven so ordained

it in pity for the vanquished; but, when it is the mind that is

subjected to the lamentable embrace of debauchery, the punishment is

inflicted in its entirety. Laurent thoroughly deserved that punishment.

He might have redeemed himself. Thérèse, too, had risked half of her

soul: he had not profited by it.

As she entered the carriage to return home, a frantic man rushed after

her. It was Laurent. He had recognized her, as she left the _foyer_, by

an involuntary gesture of horror of which she was unconscious.

"Thérèse, let us go back to the ball," he said. "I want to say to all

those men: 'You are brutes!' to all those women: 'You are vile

creatures!' I want to shout your name, your sacred name, to that idiotic

crowd, to grovel at your feet and bite the dust, calling down upon

myself all the scorn, all the insults, all the shame! I want to make my

confession aloud in the midst of that vast masquerade, as the early

Christians did in the heathen temples, which were suddenly purified by

the tears of repentance, and washed clean by the blood of the martyrs."

This outbreak lasted until Thérèse had taken him to his door. She

could not at all understand why and how that man, who was so little

intoxicated, so self-controlled, so agreeably loquacious among the

damsels of the masked ball, could become passionate to the point of

frenzy as soon as she appeared.

"It is I who drive you mad," she said. "A moment ago, those women were

talking about me as about any vile creature, and it did not even rouse

you. I have become, so far as you are concerned, a sort of avenging

spectre. That was not what I wanted. Let us part, therefore, since I can

no longer do anything but harm."

XIV

They met again the next day, however. He begged her to give him one last

day of fraternal conversation, and to take one last friendly, quiet,

_bourgeois_ walk with him. They went to the Jardin des Plantes, sat down

under the great cedar, and visited the labyrinth. It was a mild day;

there were no traces of the snow. The sun shone pale through the

light-purple clouds. The buds were already bursting with sap. Laurent

was a poet, a contemplative poet and artist, nothing else, that day: a

profound, incredible tranquillity; no remorse, no desires, and no hopes;

at intervals, flashes of ingenuous gaiety.

Thérèse, who watched him with amazement, could hardly believe that

everything was at an end between them.

The next day, there was another terrible tempest, without cause or

pretext, precisely as a storm gathers in the summer sky for no other

reason than that it was fair the day before.

Then, from day to day, everything became darker and darker, and it was

like the end of the world, like continual flashes of lightning in the

darkness.

One night, he came to her house very late, in a completely dazed

condition, and, having no idea where he was, without a word to her,

threw himself on the sofa in the salon, and fell asleep.

Thérèse went into her studio, and prayed to God fervently and

despairingly to deliver her from that torture. She was discouraged; her

cup was full. She wept and prayed all night.

Day was just breaking when she heard the bell ring at her gate.

Catherine was asleep, and Thérèse supposed that some belated passer-by

had made a mistake in the house. The ring was repeated, once, twice.

Thérèse looked out through the round window in the hall over the front

door. She saw a child of ten or twelve years, whose clothes indicated

that his family was well-to-do, and whose upturned face seemed like an

angel's.

"What is it, my little friend?" she said; "have you lost your way?"

"No," he replied, "I was brought here; I am looking for a lady whose

name is Mademoiselle Jacques."

Thérèse ran down, opened the door, and gazed at the child with

extraordinary emotion. It seemed to her that she had seen him before, or

that he resembled some one whom she knew and whose name she could not

remember. The child also seemed confused and undecided.

She led him into the garden to question him; but, instead of answering

her questions, he asked: "Are you Mademoiselle Thérèse?" while

trembling from head to foot.

"I am, my child; what do you want with me? what can I do for you?"

"You must take me and keep me with you, if you will have me!"

"Who are you? Pray tell me!"

"I am the son of the Comte de ----"

Thérèse restrained a cry, and her first impulse was to spurn the

child; but suddenly she was struck by his resemblance to a face she had

recently painted, looking at it in a mirror, in order to send it to her

mother; and that face was her own.

"Wait!" she cried, taking the boy in her arms with a convulsive

movement. "What is your name?"

"Manuel."

"Oh! _Mon Dieu_! who is your mother?"

"She is--I was told not to tell you right away! My mother used to be the

Comtesse de ----, at Havana; she didn't love me, and she used often to

say to me: 'You are not my son, I am not obliged to love you.'--But my

papa loved me, and he often said to me: 'You are all mine, you haven't

any mother.'--Then he died a year and a half ago, and the countess said:

'You belong to me and you are going to stay with me.'--That was because

my father left her some money on condition that I should always be known

as their son. But she didn't love me any better, and I was very unhappy

with her, when a gentleman from the United States, whose name is

Monsieur Richard Palmer, came all of a sudden and asked for me. The

countess said: 'No, I am not willing.'--Then Monsieur Palmer said to me:

'Do you want me to take you to your real mother, who thinks you are

dead, and who will be very happy to see you again?'--I said: 'Yes,

indeed I do!' Then Monsieur Palmer came at night in a boat, because we

lived on the sea-shore, and I got up very softly, very softly, and we

sailed together to a big ship, and then we crossed the great ocean, and

here we are."

"Here you are!" said Thérèse, who held the child close to her heart,

and, trembling with frantic joy, enveloped him in a single, fervent kiss

while he was speaking; "where is Palmer?"

"I don't know," said the child. "He brought me to the door, and told me

to ring; then I didn't see him again."

"Let us look for him," said Thérèse, rising; "he cannot be far away!"

She ran out with the child, and they found Palmer, who was waiting at a

little distance, to make sure that the boy was recognized by his mother.

"Richard! Richard!" cried Thérèse, throwing herself at his feet in the

middle of the still deserted street, as she would have done if it had

been full of people. "To me you are _God_!"

She could say no more; suffocated by tears of joy, she well-nigh went

mad.

Palmer led her beneath the trees on the Champs-Elysées, and made her

sit down. It was at least an hour before she became calm and recovered

her wits, and could manage to caress her son without danger of

smothering him.

"Now," said Palmer, "I have paid my debt. You gave me days of happiness

and hope, and I did not choose to remain under obligations to you. I

give you a whole life-time of affection and consolation, for this child

is an angel, and it costs me dear to part from him. I have deprived him

of one inheritance, and I owe him one in exchange. You have no right to

object; my measures are taken, and all his interests are properly cared

for. He has a purse in his pocket which assures his present and his

future. Adieu, Thérèse! Be sure that I am your friend in life and in

death."

Palmer went away happy; he had done a good deed. Thérèse did not

choose to return to the house where Laurent was sleeping. She took a

cab, after sending a messenger to Catherine with her instructions, which

she wrote at a small café where she and her son breakfasted. They

passed the day driving about Paris, equipping themselves for a long

journey. In the evening, Catherine joined them with the boxes she had

packed during the day, and Thérèse left Paris to conceal her child,

her happiness, her repose, her toil, her joy, her life, in the depths of

Germany. She was selfishly happy; she thought no more of what would

become of Laurent without her. She was a mother, and the mother had

killed the mistress beyond recall.

Laurent slept all day, and awoke in solitude. He rose, cursing Thérèse

for going out to walk without thinking of ordering supper for him. He

was surprised not to find Catherine; consigned the house to all the

devils, and went away.

Not until some days later did he understand what had happened to him.

When he saw that Thérèse's house was sublet, the furniture stored or

sold, and when he waited weeks and months without receiving a word from

her, he abandoned hope, and thought of nothing but wooing oblivion.

Not until a year had elapsed did he find a way to send a letter to

Thérèse. He charged himself with all his misfortunes, and implored a

return of the former friendship; then reverted to the vein of passion,

and concluded thus:

"I know that I do not deserve even this from you, for I cursed you, and

in my despair at losing you I made the efforts of a desperate man to

cure myself. Yes, I strove to make your character and your conduct

unnatural in my own eyes; I said evil of you with people who hate you,

and I took delight in hearing evil said of you by people who did not

know you. I treated you absent as I treated you when you were here. And

why are you not here? It is your fault if I go mad; you should not have

abandoned me. Oh! wretch that I am, I feel that I hate you at the same

time that I adore you. I feel that my whole life will be passed in

loving you and cursing you. And I see that you detest me! And I would

like to kill you! And if you were here I should fall at your feet!

Thérèse, Thérèse, have you become a monster, that you no longer know

pity? Oh! what a horrible punishment is this incurable love, combined

with this unsatisfied anger! What have I done, O my God! to be reduced

to lose everything, even liberty to love or hate?"

Thérèse replied:

"Adieu forever! But be sure that you have done nothing to me which I

have not forgiven, and that you can never do anything which I cannot

forgive. God condemns certain men of genius to wander about in the

tempest and to create while in pain. I have studied you enough in your

lights and shadows, in your grandeur and your weakness, to know that you

are the victim of destiny, and that you should not be weighed in the

same scales with most other men. Your suffering and your doubt, which

you call your punishment, may be the conditions upon which your glory

depends. Learn, therefore, to submit to them. You aspired with all your

might to ideal happiness, and you grasped it only in your dreams. But

your dreams, my child, are your reality, they are your talent, they are

your life; are you not an artist?

"Have no fear, God will forgive you for not being able to love! He

doomed you to that insatiable aspiration, so that your youth should not

be engrossed by one woman. The women of the future, they who will gaze

at your work from century to century,--they are your sisters and your

sweethearts."

LAVINIA

AN OLD TALE

NOTE

"Since you are to be married, Lionel, would it not be well for us to

return our respective letters and pictures? It can easily be done, since

chance has brought us within a short distance of each other, and, after

ten years passed in different countries, we are but a few leagues apart

to-day. You come sometimes to Saint-Sauveur, so I am told; I am passing

only a week here. I trust, therefore, that you will be here during the

week with the package which I desire. I am living in the Maison

Estabanette, at the foot of the water-fall. You can send your messenger

there; he will bring back to you a similar package, which I have all

ready for delivery in exchange for the other."

REPLY

"MADAME:

"The package which you command me to send you is with me, sealed, and

bearing your name. I ought, doubtless, to be gratified to find that you

relied confidently upon my having it at hand whenever and wherever it

should please you to demand it.

"But is it necessary, madame, that I should go myself to Saint-Sauveur,

there to place it in the hands of a third person to be handed to you?

Since you do not deem it advisable to accord me the pleasure of seeing

you, will it not be simpler for me not to go to the place where you are

living and expose myself to the emotion of being so near you? Would it

not be better for me to entrust the package to a messenger of whom I am

sure, to be taken from Bagnères to Saint-Sauveur? I await your orders

in this regard; whatever they may be, madame, I will submit to them

blindly."

NOTE

"I knew, Lionel, that my letters happened to be among your luggage at

this moment, because my cousin Henry told me that he saw you at

Bagnères, and learned that fact from you. I am very glad that Henry,

who is a little inclined to prevaricate, like all gossips, did not

deceive me. I asked you to bring the package to Saint-Sauveur yourself,

because such documents should not be carelessly exposed to danger in

mountains infested with smugglers who steal everything that falls into

their hands. As I know that you are the sort of man to defend a trust

valiantly, I cannot but feel perfectly safe in making you the guardian

of the treasure in which I am interested. I did not suggest an

interview, because I feared to make even more disagreeable the vexatious

step which I have in a measure forced upon you. But since you seem to

refer with regret to the possibility of an interview, I owe you that

feeble compensation, and grant it with all my heart. But, as I do not

wish to make you sacrifice valuable time in waiting for me, I will

appoint a day, so that you may be sure to find me. Be at Saint-Sauveur,

then, on the 15th, at nine in the evening. Go to my house, and send word

to me by my negress. I will return at once. The package will be ready.

Farewell."

Sir Lionel was disagreeably surprised by the receipt of the second note.

It found him in the midst of preparing for a trip to Luchon, during

which the fair Miss Ellis, his future bride, expected to be favored with

his escort. It was certain to be a charming trip. At watering-places,

pleasure-parties are almost always successful, because they succeed one

another so rapidly that one has no time to prepare for them; because

life moves swiftly, sharply, and in unexpected ways; because the

constant arrival of new companions gives a flavor of improvisation to

the most trivial details of a fête.

Sir Lionel was amusing himself, therefore, at the watering-places in the

Pyrenees as much as it is seemly for a true Englishman to amuse himself.

He was, moreover, in love to a reasonable degree with Miss Ellis's plump

figure and comfortable dowry; and his desertion on the eve of so

important a riding excursion--Mademoiselle Ellis had sent to Tarbes for

a very handsome dapple-gray Bearnese steed, whose fine points she

proposed to exhibit at the head of the cavalcade--might have a

disastrous effect on his projected marriage. But Sir Lionel's position

was embarrassing; he was a man of honor, and of the most scrupulous

type. He went to his friend Sir Henry to lay before him this case of

conscience.

But, in order to compel that jovial individual to give him his serious

attention, he began by picking a quarrel with him.

"Rattle-pated gossip that you are!" he cried, as he entered the room;

"it was well worth while to go to tell your cousin that her letters were

travelling about with me! You never yet were able to keep a dangerous

word inside your lips. You are like a brook that flows the faster the

more water it receives; one of those vases, open at the ends, which

embellish the statues of naiads and river-gods; the water that rushes

through them doesn't stop for a moment."

"Good, Lionel, good!" cried the young man; "I like to see you in a fit

of temper; it makes you poetic. At such times, you are yourself a

stream, a river of metaphors, a torrent of eloquence, a reservoir of

allegories."

"Oh! it's all very well to laugh!" exclaimed Lionel angrily; "we are not

going to Luchon."

"We are not going! Who says so?"

"You and I are not going; I say so."

"Speak for yourself, if you please; so far as I am concerned, I am your

humble servant."

"But I am not going, therefore you are not going, either. You have made

a blunder, Henry, and you must repair it. You have caused me a terrible

disappointment; your conscience bids you to help me to bear it. You will

dine with me at Saint-Sauveur."

"May the devil fly away with me if I do!" cried Henry; "I have been

madly in love since last night with the little girl from Bordeaux, at

whom I laughed so heartily yesterday morning. I intend to go to Luchon,

for she is going; she is going to ride my Yorkshire, and she will make

your tall chestnut Margaret Ellis burst with jealousy."

"Look you, Henry," said Lionel gravely, "you are a friend of mine?"

"Of course; you know that. It's of no use to go into hysterics over our

friendship just at this time. I understand that this solemn beginning is

intended to impress me."

"Listen to me, Henry, I tell you; you are my friend, you rejoice in the

fortunate occurrences of my life, and you would not readily forgive

yourself, I am sure, for having caused me an injury, a genuine

misfortune?"

"No, on my honor! But what are you talking about?"

"Well, Henry! it may be that you have caused my marriage to fall

through."

"Nonsense! what folly! just because I told my cousin that you had her

letters, and she asks you to return them! What influence can Lady

Lavinia still have over your life, after ten years of mutual oblivion?

Are you conceited enough to believe that she has never been consoled for

your infidelity? Nonsense, Lionel! that is carrying remorse too far!

there's no great harm done! it can be remedied, believe me----"

As he spoke, Henry nonchalantly put his hand to his cravat and glanced

at the mirror; two acts which, in the venerable language of pantomime,

are easy to interpret.

This lesson in modesty, from the lips of a much more conceited man than

he, irritated Sir Lionel.

"I shall indulge in no reflections on Lady Lavinia's conduct," he

replied, trying to express all the bitterness he felt. "No feeling of

wounded vanity will ever lead me to try to blacken a woman's reputation,

even though I had never loved her."

"That is precisely my case," replied Sir Henry carelessly; "I never

loved her, and I never was jealous of those whom she may have treated

better than me; nor have I anything to say of the virtue of my

gloriously beautiful cousin Lavinia; I have never tried seriously to

move her."

"You have done her that favor, Henry? She should be exceedingly grateful

to you!"

"Come, come, Lionel! what are we talking about, and what did you come to

say to me? You seemed yesterday to have very little regard for the

memories of your early loves; you were absolutely prostrate before the

radiant Ellis. To-day where are you, please? You seem unwilling to

listen to reason on the subject of the past, and then you talk about

going to Saint-Sauveur instead of to Luchon! Tell me, with whom are you

in love? whom are you going to marry?"

"I am going to marry Miss Margaret, if it please God and you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you can save me. In the first place, read the last note your

cousin has written me. Have you done it? Very good. Now, you see, I must

decide between Luchon and Saint-Sauveur, between a woman to be won and a

woman to be consoled."

"Stop there, impertinent!" cried Henry; "I have told you a hundred times

that my cousin is as fresh as the flowers, lovely as the angels, lively

as a bird, light-hearted, rosy, stylish, and coquettish; if that woman

is in despair, I am content to groan all my life under the burden of a

like sorrow."

"Don't expect to pique me, Henry; I am overjoyed to hear what you tell

me. But in that case can you explain to me the strange caprice that

leads Lady Lavinia to force a meeting upon me?"

"O you stupid fellow!" cried Henry; "don't you see that it's your own

fault? Lavinia had not the slightest wish for this meeting; I am very

sure of it; for when I spoke to her about you, when I asked her if her

heart didn't beat fast sometimes, on the road from Bagnères to

Saint-Sauveur, when a riding-party drew near, of which you might be one,

she replied indifferently: 'Oh! perhaps my heart would beat faster if I

should meet him!'--And the last words were deliciously emphasized by a

yawn. Oh! don't bite your lip, Lionel; one of those pretty little

feminine yawns, so cool and harmonious that they seem courteous and

caressing, so long drawn out that they express the most absolute apathy

and the most hearty indifference. But you, instead of taking advantage

of this excellent disposition on her part, cannot resist the temptation

to construct phrases. True to the everlasting pathos of discarded

lovers, although enchanted to be one, you affect the piteous elegiac

tone; you seem to bewail the impossibility of seeing her instead of

telling her frankly that you are grateful beyond words."

"A man cannot say such impertinent things. How could I have foreseen

that she would take seriously a few meaningless words prompted by the

proprieties of the situation?"

"Oh! I know Lavinia; it's a characteristic piece of mischief."

"It's the never-failing mischief of womankind! But no; Lavinia was the

sweetest and least satirical of women; I am sure that she is no more

desirous of this interview than I am. Come, my dear Henry, save us both

from this torture; take the package and go to Saint-Sauveur; take it

upon yourself to arrange everything; make her understand that I

cannot----"

"Leave Miss Ellis on the eve of your marriage, eh? That's an excellent

reason to give to a rival! Impossible! you made the blunder, my dear

fellow, and you must drink the cup. When a man is foolish enough to keep

a woman's picture and letters for ten years, when he is giddy enough to

boast of it to a chatterbox like me, when he is mad enough to be witty

and sentimental in cold blood in a letter of rupture, he must submit to

all the consequences. You have no right to refuse Lady Lavinia anything

so long as her letters are in your hands; and whatever method of

communication she may impose on you, you must submit to it so long as

you have not carried out that solemn obligation. Come, Lionel! order

your pony saddled and let us be off; for I will go with you. I have been

a little to blame in all this, and you see that I cease to jest when it

comes to repairing my mistakes. Let us go!"

Lionel had hoped that Henry would suggest some other way of helping him

out of the scrape. He sat motionless, dismayed, chained to his place by

a secret, involuntary impulse to resist the decrees of necessity. But he

rose at last, sad, resigned, and with his arms folded across his chest.

In the matter of love, Sir Lionel was an accomplished hero. If his heart

had been false to more than one passion, his external conduct had never

departed from the code of the _proprieties_; no woman had ever had

reason to reproach him for any act at variance with that refined and

generous condescension which is the most convincing sign of indifference

that a well-bred man can give to an irritated woman. With the

consciousness of having been scrupulously observant of these rules, the

handsome Sir Lionel forgave himself for the sorrows attached to his

triumphs.

"Here is a pretext!" cried Sir Henry, rising in his turn. "The coterie

of our fair compatriots decides everything here. Miss Ellis and her

sister Anna are the most influential powers in the council of Amazons.

We must induce Margaret to postpone this excursion, which is fixed for

to-morrow, for one more day. A day here is a good deal, I know; but we

must obtain it, allege some serious reason for our inability to go, and

start to-night for Saint-Sauveur. We shall arrive there in the

afternoon; we will rest until evening; at nine o'clock, while you are

together, I will have the horses saddled, and at ten o'clock--I fancy

that you won't need more than an hour to exchange two packages of

letters--we will mount and ride all night, reach here at sunrise, and

find the fair Margaret caracoling on her noble steed, my pretty little

Madame Bernos curvetting on my Yorkshire; we will change boots and

horses; and, covered with dust, dead with fatigue, consumed with love,

pale and interesting, we will attend our Dulcineas over mountains and

valleys. If so much zeal is not rewarded, all women must be hanged as an

example. Come, are you ready?"

Lionel, overflowing with gratitude, threw himself into Henry's arms. An

hour later the latter returned.

"Let us be off," he said, "everything is arranged; the Luchon excursion

is postponed till the 16th; but it was hard work. Miss Ellis had some

suspicions. She knows that my cousin is at Saint-Sauveur, and she has a

terrible aversion for my cousin, because she knows what a fool you made

of yourself for her. But I adroitly turned aside her suspicions; I said

that you were horribly ill, and that I had just forced you to go to

bed----"

"Great Heaven! a new freak to help to ruin my chances!"

"No, no, not at all! Dick will put a night-cap on your bolster, place it

in your bed, and order three pints of herb-tea from the maid-servant.

Then he will put the key of the room in his pocket, and take up his

position in front of the door, with a long face and mournful eyes; and

he has orders not to let any one in and to murder whoever attempts to

force a passage, though it were Miss Margaret herself. Ah! here he is

already making up your bed. Good! he has an excellent face; he wants to

look sad and he looks idiotic. Let us go out by the gate leading into

the ravine. Jack will bring our horses to the end of the valley, as if

he were exercising them, and we will join him at Lonnio Bridge. Come,

forward, and may the god of love protect us!"

They rode rapidly over the space that separates the two mountain chains,

and did not slacken their speed until they entered the dark and narrow

gorge which extends from Pierrefitte to Luz. That gorge is

unquestionably one of the most characteristic and forbidding spots in

the Pyrenees. Everything has a formidable look there. The mountains draw

together; the banks of the Gave contract, and the river flows with a

dull roar under the arches of rock and wild vines; the black sides of

the cliff are covered with climbing plants, whose brilliant green fades

to bluish tints in the distance, and to grayish tones near the

mountain-tops. Their reflections in the rushing streams are sometimes of

a limpid green, sometimes of a dull, slaty-blue, such as we see in the

waters of the ocean.

Great marble bridges of a single span stretch from mountain to mountain

over deep chasms. Nothing can be more imposing than the construction and

the situation of those bridges, cast into space as it were, and swimming

in the white, moist atmosphere which seems to fall regretfully into the

ravine. The road passes from one side of the gorge to the other seven

times in the space of four leagues. When our travellers crossed the

seventh bridge, they saw at the bottom of the gorge, which widened

almost imperceptibly before them, the charming valley of Luz, bathed in

the flames of the rising sun. The mountains on both sides of the road

were so high that not a single beam reached them. The water-ouzel

uttered his plaintive little cry among the grasses by the stream. The

cold, foaming water raised with an effort the veil of mist that lay upon

it. On the higher ground a few lines of light gilded the jutting rocks,

and the hanging locks of the clematis. But in the background of that

rugged landscape, behind those huge black masses, as frowning and sullen

as Salvator's favorite subjects, the lovely valley, bathed in sparkling

dew, floated in the light and formed a sheet of gold in a frame of black

marble.

"How lovely it is!" cried Henry, "and how I pity you for being in love,

Lionel! You are insensible to all these sublime things; you consider

that the loveliest sunbeam is not worth one of Miss Margaret Ellis's

smiles."

"Confess, Henry, that Margaret is the loveliest creature in the three

kingdoms."

"Yes, theoretically she is a flawless beauty. But that is just the fault

I have to find with her. I would like her to be less perfect, less

majestic, less classic. I should love my cousin a thousand times better

if God should give me my choice between them."

"Nonsense, Henry, you don't mean what you say," said Lionel, smiling;

"family pride blinds you. By the unanimous agreement of all who have

eyes in their heads, Lady Lavinia's beauty is more than problematical;

and I, who knew her in all the freshness of her prime, can assure you

that there never was any possible comparison between them."

"Agreed; but Lavinia is so graceful and charming! her eyes are so

bright, her hair so lovely, her feet so small!"

Lionel amused himself for some time combating Henry's admiration for his

cousin. But, while he enjoyed extolling the beauty that he loved, a

secret sentiment of self-esteem made him also enjoy listening to the

praise of her whom he had formerly loved. It was a momentary impulse of

vanity, nothing more; for poor Lavinia had never really reigned in his

heart, which easy triumphs had spoiled very early. It is a great

misfortune for a man to be thrust into a prominent position too soon.

The blind admiration of the women, the foolish jealousy of vulgar

rivals, are quite enough to give a false direction to an untried

judgment and to corrupt an inexperienced mind.

Lionel, from having known too much of the joy of being loved, had

exhausted the powers of his heart; from having exercised his passions

too early in life, he had made himself forever incapable of feeling a

serious passion. Beneath a handsome, manly face, beneath a youthful and

vigorous expression, he concealed a heart as cold and worn out as an old

man's.

"Come, Lionel, tell me why you did not marry Lavinia Buenafè, who is

to-day Lady Blake through your fault? for, although I am no rigid

moralist, and although I am disposed to respect in our sex the God-given

privilege of doing as we please, I am unable to approve your conduct,

when I reflect upon it. After courting her for two years, after

compromising her as much as it is possible to compromise a young

lady,--which is not a very easy thing to do in blessed Albion,--after

causing her to reject some most eligible offers, you dropped her to run

after an Italian singer, who certainly did not deserve the honor of

inspiring such perfidy. Tell me, was not Lavinia clever and pretty? was

she not the daughter of a Portuguese banker, a Jew to be sure, but very

rich? was she not a good match? didn't she love you to distraction?"

"Why, my dear fellow, that is just why I complain: she loved me too much

for me ever to have made her my wife. In the opinion of every man of

sense, a lawful wife should be a gentle and placid helpmeet, an

Englishwoman to the very depths of her being, not very susceptible to

love, incapable of jealousy, fond of sleep, and sufficiently addicted to

the excessive use of black tea to keep her faculties in a conjugal

state. With that Portuguese girl, ardent of heart, active, accustomed

from childhood to constant change of abode, to unrestrained manners,

liberal ideas, and all the dangerous opinions that a woman picks up

while travelling all over the world, I should have been the most

miserable, if not the most ridiculous of husbands. For fifteen months I

was blind to the inevitable misery that that love was brewing for me. I

was so young then! I was only twenty-two; remember that, Henry, and do

not condemn me. I opened my eyes at last, just when I was about to

commit the signal folly of marrying a woman who was madly in love with

me. I halted on the brink of the precipice, and I fled in order not to

succumb to my weakness."

"Hypocrite!" said Henry, "Lavinia told me the story very differently: it

seems that, long before the heartless resolution that sent you off to

Italy with Rosmonda, you had already tired of the poor Jewess, and that

you cruelly made her sensible of the _ennui_ that overpowered you when

you were with her. Oh! when Lavinia tells about that, she displays no

self-conceit, I assure you; she avows her unhappiness and your cruelty

with an artless modesty which I have never noticed in other women. She

has a way of her own of saying: 'In a word, I bored him.'--I tell you,

Lionel, if you had heard her say those words, with the accent of

ingenuous melancholy that she puts into them, I'll wager that you would

have felt the stings of remorse."

"Ah! have I never felt them!" cried Lionel. "That is what disgusts a man

still more with a woman--all that he has to suffer on her account after

he leaves her, the thousand and one annoyances caused by the haunting

memory of her, the voice of bourgeois society crying for revenge and

shrieking curses, the disturbed and frightened conscience, and the

exceedingly gentle but exceedingly cruel reproaches which the poor

abandoned creature heaps upon him through the hundred voices of rumor.

I tell you, Henry, I know nothing more wearisome or more depressing than

the trade of a lady-killer."

"To whom are you talking?" retorted Henry grandiloquently, with that

ironical, conceited gesture which became him so well. But his companion

did not deign to smile, and continued to ride on slowly, letting his

reins lie on his horse's neck, and resting his wearied eyes on the

charming panorama which the valley unrolled at his feet.

Luz is a small town about a mile from Saint-Sauveur. Our dandies halted

there; Lionel could not be persuaded to go on to the place where Lady

Lavinia was living; he took up his quarters in an inn, and threw himself

on the bed, awaiting the hour fixed for the meeting.

Although the climate is very much cooler in the valley of Luz than in

that of Bigorre, it was a scorching, oppressive day. Sir Lionel,

stretched upon a wretched tavern bed, felt some feverish symptoms, and

fell into a troubled sleep amid the buzzing of the insects that circled

about his head in the burning air. His companion, being more active and

less disturbed in mind, crossed the valley, paid visits all over the

neighborhood, watched the riding-parties on the Gavarni road, saluted

the fair dames whom he spied at their windows or on the roads, cast

burning glances at the young Frenchwomen, for whom he had a decided

preference, and joined Lionel again about night-fall.

"Come, up, up!" he cried, pulling aside the woollen curtains; "it is the

time fixed for the meeting."

"Already?" said Lionel, who was just beginning to sleep comfortably,

thanks to the cool evening air; "what time is it, Henry?"

Henry replied, with emphasis:

"At the close of the day when the Hamlet is still,

And naught but the torrent is heard upon the hill--"[2]

"Oh! for God's sake, spare me your quotations, Henry! I can see for

myself that it is growing dark, that silence is stealing over the

landscape, that the voice of the torrent is louder and clearer; but Lady

Lavinia doesn't expect me until nine o'clock, so I can sleep a little

longer."

"No, not another minute, Lionel. We must walk to Saint-Sauveur; for I

had our horses taken there this morning, and the poor creatures are

tired enough now, to say nothing of what they still have to do. Come,

dress yourself. Good! At ten o'clock, I will be at Lady Lavinia's door

on horseback, holding your palfrey and ready to hand you your rein,

exactly as our big William used to do at the theatre, when he was

reduced to playing the jockey, the great man! Come, Lionel, here's your

portmanteau, a white cravat, and some wax for your moustache. Patience!

Oh! such negligence! such apathy! Can you think of such a thing, my dear

fellow, as appearing carelessly dressed before a woman you no longer

love? that would be a terrible blunder! Pray understand that you must,

on the contrary, appear to the very best advantage, in order to make her

realize the value of what she has lost. Come, come, brush your hair back

even more carefully than if you were preparing to open the ball with

Miss Margaret. Good! Let me brush your coat a bit. What! can it be that

you forgot to bring a phial of essence of tuberose with which to

saturate your silk handkerchief? That would be inexcusable. No, God be

praised! here it is. On my word, Lionel, you are deliciously fragrant,

you are magnificent; off you go. Remember that your honor is involved in

causing a few tears to flow when you appear to-night, for the last time,

on Lady Lavinia's horizon."

When they passed through the hamlet of Saint-Sauveur, which consists of

fifty houses at the most, they were surprised to see no people of

fashion in the street or at the windows. But they understood that

strange circumstance when they passed the ground-floor windows of a

house from which came the shrill notes of a violin, flageolet, and

_tympanon_, an indigenous instrument half-way between the French

tambourine and the Spanish guitar. The noise and the dust apprised our

travellers that the ball had begun, and that the most fashionable

members of the aristocracy of France, Spain, and England, assembled in

a modest apartment, with whitewashed walls embellished with wreaths of

boxwood and wild thyme, were dancing to the strains of the most infernal

cacophony that ever rent mortal ears and marked time falsely.

Several groups of _bathers_, those whom a less well-filled purse or

genuine ill-health deprived of the pleasure of taking an active part in

the function, were crowded about the windows, casting an envious or

satirical glance into the ball-room over each other's shoulders, and

exchanging enthusiastic or ill-natured remarks, pending the time when

the village clock should strike the hour when every convalescent must go

to bed, under pain of losing the _benefit_ of the mineral waters.

As our two friends passed these groups, there was a sort of oscillating

movement toward the windows; and Henry, mingling with the lookers-on,

overheard these words:

"That's the beautiful Jewess, Lavinia Blake, just standing up to dance.

They say that she's the best dancer in Europe."

"Come, Lionel," cried the young baronet; "come, see how beautifully

dressed and charming my cousin is!"

But Lionel pulled him by the arm and dragged him away from the window,

angrily and impatiently, not deigning to glance in that direction.

"Come, come!" he said; "we didn't come here to watch people dance."

But he could not move on so quickly that he did not hear another remark

made somewhere in his neighborhood:

"Ah! the handsome Comte de Morangy is her partner."

"Do me the favor to tell me who else is likely to be?" rejoined another

voice.

"They say he has lost his head over her," observed a third by-stander.

"He has already used up three horses for her, and I don't know how many

jockeys."

Self-esteem is so strange a counsellor, that, thanks to it, we all find

ourselves in flat contradiction with ourselves a hundred times a day. In

reality, Sir Lionel was delighted to know that Lady Lavinia was placed,

by a new attachment, in a situation which assured their mutual

independence. And yet, the publicity of the triumph which might help

that discarded woman to forget the past was a species of affront which

Lionel found it difficult to swallow.

Henry, who knew the neighborhood, guided him to the end of the village,

to the house in which his cousin lived. There he left him.

This house stood a little apart from the other dwellings; the mountain

rose behind it, and the front windows overlooked the ravine. A few feet

away, a stream fell noisily into a cleft of the rock; and the house,

bathed, so to speak, in that cool, wild noise, seemed to be shaken by

the falling water and on the point of plunging with it into the abyss.

It was one of the most picturesque locations imaginable, and Lionel

recognized in the choice the romantic and slightly eccentric nature of

Lady Lavinia.

An old negress opened the door of a small salon on the ground-floor. No

sooner did the light fall on her glistening, weather-beaten face, than

Lionel uttered an exclamation of surprise. It was Pepa, Lavinia's old

nurse, whom Lionel had seen for two years in attendance upon his

beloved. As he was not on his guard against any sort of emotion, the

unexpected appearance of that old woman, arousing the memory of the

past, upset all his ideas for a moment. He was very near leaping on her

neck, calling her nurse, as in his youthful, merry days, and embracing

her as an old friend and faithful servant; but Pepa stepped back,

observing Lionel's eagerness with an air of stupefaction. She did not

recognize him.

"Alas! am I so changed?" he thought.

"I am the person whom Lady Lavinia sent for," he said in a faltering

voice. "Did she not tell you?"

"Yes, yes, my lord," replied the negress; "my lady is at the ball; she

told me to bring her her fan as soon as a gentleman knocked at the door.

Stay here; I will go to tell her."

The old woman looked about for the fan. It was on a marble table, at Sir

Lionel's hand. He took it up and gave it to the negress, and his fingers

retained the perfume after she had gone out.

That perfume worked upon him like a charm; his nerves received a shock

which extended to his heart and made it quiver. It was Lavinia's

favorite perfume: a species of aromatic herb which grows in India, and

with which her clothes and her furniture used always to be impregnated.

That odor of patchouly was in itself a whole world of memories, a whole

life-time of love; it was an emanation from the first woman Lionel had

ever loved. A film passed over his eyes, his pulses throbbed violently;

it seemed to him as if a cloud were floating in front of him, and in

that cloud, a girl of sixteen, dark skinned, slender, at once lively and

gentle: Lavinia the Jewess, his first love. He saw her pass, swift as a

doe, skimming over the heather, riding through the game-laden preserves

of her park, urging her black hackney through the swamps; merry, ardent,

and capricious as Diana Vernon, or as the jovial fairies of the Emerald

Isle.

He soon felt ashamed of his weakness, when he thought of the _ennui_

that had blighted that love and all the rest. He cast a sadly

philosophical glance upon the ten years of positive existence which

separated him from those days of pastorals and poetry; then he evoked

the future, parliamentary renown, and the splendor of a political

career, in the guise of Miss Margaret Ellis, whom he next evoked herself

in the guise of her dowry; and finally he began to inspect the room in

which he stood, glancing about with the sceptical expression of a

disillusioned lover, and of a man of thirty at odds with social life.

Visitors to the watering-places in the Pyrenees live in simple lodgings;

but thanks to the avalanches and torrents which wreck many houses every

winter, decorations and furniture have to be replaced or restored every

spring. The cottage Lavinia had hired was built of rough marble, and

sheathed with resinous woods inside. The wood was painted white, and was

as bright and cool as stucco. A rush mat of several colors, woven in

Spain, served as a carpet. Snow-white dimity curtains reflected the

moving shadows of the firs which shook their black tops in the

night-wind, beneath the watery glance of the moon. Small jars of

varnished olive-wood were filled with the loveliest mountain flowers.

Lavinia had plucked with her own hand, in the loveliest valleys and on

the loftiest peaks, the nightshade with its ruddy breast; the

monk's-hood with its pale-blue petals and poisonous calyx; the pink and

white sweet-william, with its delicately notched petals; the pallid

soap-wort; the transparent bell-flowers, wrinkled like muslin; the

purple valerian and all the wild daughters of solitude, so fresh and

fragrant that the chamois fears that he may blight them by brushing

against them as he runs, and the water of springs unknown to the hunter

barely bends them with its careless, silent stream.

That white and perfume-laden apartment had, as if unwittingly, an air of

assignation; but it seemed also the sanctuary of a pure and maidenly

love. The candles shed a timid light; the flowers seemed modestly to

shield their bosoms from the glare; no woman's garment, no symbol of

coquetry, had been left lying on the furniture; only a bunch of withered

pansies and a torn white glove lay side by side on the mantel. Lionel,

obeying an uncontrollable impulse, picked up the glove and crumpled it

in his hand. It was like the cold, convulsive grasp of a last farewell.

He took up the odorless bouquet, gazed at it for a moment, made a bitter

remark about the flowers of which it was composed, and threw it down.

Had Lavinia placed it there with the purpose that it should be noticed

by her former lover?

Lionel walked to the window and put aside the curtains, to divert, by

looking upon the spectacle offered by nature, the emotion that was

gradually stealing over him. It was a magical spectacle. The house,

built on the solid rock, formed a sort of bastion to a gigantic wall of

perpendicular cliffs of which the Gave bathed the base. At the right,

the cataract plunged into the ravine with a loud roar; at the left, a

clump of firs leaned far over the abyss; in the distance lay the valley,

vaguely outlined in the white moonlight. A tall wild laurel, growing in

a cleft of the rock, brushed the window-sill with its long, shiny

leaves, and the breeze, rubbing them together, seemed to be whispering

mysterious words.

Lavinia entered while Lionel was engrossed by this spectacle; the noise

of the water-fall and the wind prevented him from hearing her. She stood

behind him a few moments, occupied, doubtless, in collecting her

thoughts, and perhaps asking herself if this were really the man she had

loved so dearly; for, at that moment of inevitable emotion, although the

situation had been planned beforehand, Lavinia fancied that she was

dreaming. She could remember a time when it would have seemed impossible

to her that she could see Lionel again without falling dead with grief

and wrath. And now she stood there, mild and calm, perhaps indifferent.

Lionel turned instinctively and saw her. He was not expecting her, and

he uttered an exclamation; then, ashamed of such a breach of the

proprieties, and bewildered by the emotion that he felt, he made a

violent effort to bestow upon Lady Lavinia a faultless and

irreproachable salutation.

But, despite his utmost endeavors, an unforeseen embarrassment, an

unconquerable agitation, paralyzed his shrewd yet frivolous wit, that

tractable, obliging wit, which stood ever ready to be thrown into

circulation, according to the laws of affability, and to be passed, like

coin, from hand to hand, for the use of the first comer. On this

occasion his rebellious wit held its peace and gazed open-mouthed at

Lady Lavinia.

You see, he did not expect to find her so beautiful. He had left her

quite ill and sadly changed. In those days, tears had withered her

cheeks, sorrow had reduced her flesh; her eyes were dull, her hands hot

and dry, and she neglected her dress. She imprudently made herself ugly

then, poor Lavinia! not thinking that sorrow embellishes a woman's heart

only, and that most men are quite ready to deny the existence of mind in

woman, as was done at a certain council of Italian prelates.

Now, Lavinia was in all the splendor of that second beauty which comes

to women who have not received incurable wounds in the heart in their

first youth. She was still a pale, thin Portuguese, with a slightly

bronzed skin and a somewhat sharp profile; but her expression and her

manners had acquired all the grace, all the caressing charm, of a

Frenchwoman's. Her dark skin was as soft as velvet, as the result of

restored and unfailing health; her slender form had recovered the lithe

and flexible activity of youth; her hair, which she had cut off in the

old days as a sacrifice to love, now shone in all its splendor, in heavy

masses over her smooth brow; her costume consisted of a gown of India

muslin, and a bunch of white heather, picked in the ravine and thrust in

her hair. There is no more graceful plant than the white heather; as you

watched its delicate clusters waving over Lavinia's black hair, you

would have said that they were clusters of living pearls. That

head-dress and that simple gown were in the most exquisite taste, and

the ingenious coquetry of the sex revealed itself therein by dint of

concealing itself.

Never had Lionel seen Lavinia so fascinating. For an instant, he was on

the point of falling at her feet and asking pardon; but the placid smile

that he saw on her face restored to him the modicum of bitterness

necessary to enable him to carry through the interview with every

appearance of dignity.

In default of suitable words, he took from his breast a carefully sealed

package, and said, in a firm voice, as he placed it on the table:

"You see, madame, that I have obeyed like a slave; may I believe that my

liberty will be restored to me from to-day?"

"It seems to me," rejoined Lavinia, with a somewhat melancholy

playfulness, "that your liberty has not been very tightly chained, Sir

Lionel! As a matter of fact, have you remained all this time in my

fetters? I confess that I had not flattered myself that such was the

fact."

"Oh! madame, in heaven's name, let us not jest! Is not this a melancholy

moment?"

"It is an old tradition," she replied, "a conventional _dénouement_, an

inevitable climax in all love-stories. And if, when two people were

writing to each other, they were thoroughly impressed with the fact that

in the future they would have to wrest their letters from each other

with suspicion---- But no one ever thinks of it. At twenty years, we

write with a sense of the utmost security, because we have exchanged

eternal oaths; we smile with pity when we think of the commonplace

results of all the passions that we see dying out; we are proud to

believe that we shall prove an exception to this great law of human

fickleness! Noble error, blessed conceit, wherein are born the grandeur

and the illusions of youth! isn't that so, Lionel?"

Lionel remained dumb with stupefaction. This sadly philosophical

language, although natural enough in Lavinia's mouth, seemed to him a

ghastly contradiction, for he had never seen her so: he had seen her, a

weak child, abandon herself blindly to all the errors of life, yield

herself trustfully to all the tempests of passion; and, when he had left

her crushed with grief, he had heard her continue to protest eternal

fidelity to the author of her despair.

But to hear her thus pronounce sentence of death on all the illusions of

the past, was a painful and ghastly thing. That woman who survived

herself, so to speak, and who was not afraid to deliver a funeral

oration on her own life, was a profoundly depressing spectacle, which

Lionel could not witness without a pang. He could think of nothing to

say in reply. He knew better than any one all that might be said in such

cases, but he had not the courage to help Lavinia to commit suicide.

As he twisted and turned the package of letters in his hand in his

embarrassment, she continued:

"You know me well enough, or, better still, you remember enough about

me, to be sure that I reclaim these pledges of a former attachment for

none of those prudential reasons which occur to women when they cease to

love. If you had any suspicion of such a thing, I need do no more to

justify myself than remind you that these pledges have remained in your

hands for ten years, and that I have not once thought of asking you for

them. I should never have made up my mind to do it, had it not been that

another woman's happiness was jeopardized by the existence of those

papers."

Lionel gazed steadfastly at Lavinia, watching for the faintest

indication of bitterness or chagrin produced by the thought of Margaret

Ellis; but he could not detect the slightest change in her expression or

her voice. Lavinia seemed to be invulnerable.

"Has this woman changed to diamond or to ice?" he asked himself.

"You are very generous," he said, in a tone which expressed both

gratitude and sarcasm, "if that is your only motive."

"What other can I have, Sir Lionel? Will you kindly tell me?"

"I might presume, madame, if I were inclined to deny your

generosity,--which God forbid!--that personal motives are behind your

wish to recover possession of these letters and this portrait."

"It would be a little late for me to think of that," laughed Lavinia;

"surely, if I should tell you that I had waited until this late day

before having _personal motives_,--that was your expression,--you would

feel terribly remorseful, would you not?"

"You embarrass me extremely, madame," said Lionel; and he said these

words composedly, for he was on his own ground once more. He had

expected reproaches, and was prepared for an attack; but he had not that

advantage; the enemy instantly changed her ground.

"Come, come, my dear Lionel," she said, smiling, with a glance of

genuine kindness which was entirely unfamiliar to him, who had known

only the passionate side of her nature, "don't be afraid of my abusing

the opportunity. Common-sense has come to me with years, and I have long

understood that you were not blameworthy with regard to me; I was

blameworthy toward myself, toward society, and perhaps toward you; for,

between two lovers as young as we were, the woman should be the man's

guide. Instead of leading him astray among the paths of a false and

impossible destiny, she should preserve him for the world by drawing him

to her. I did not know how to do anything right; I raised innumerable

obstacles in your life; I was the cause, involuntary, to be sure, but

imprudent, of the prolonged shrieks of malediction that pursued you; I

had the horrible agony of seeing your life threatened by avengers whom I

disavowed, but who rose up against you, despite my disavowal; I was the

torment of your youth and the curse of your manhood. Forgive me; I have

fully expiated the wrong I did you."

Lionel proceeded from surprise to surprise. He had come there, as a

defendant, to take his seat most unwillingly in the dock; and lo! he was

treated as a judge, and was humbly entreated to be merciful! Lionel was

born with a noble heart; the breath of worldly vanities had blighted it

in its bloom. Lady Lavinia's generosity moved him the more deeply,

because he was not prepared for it. Vanquished by the nobility of the

character thus revealed to him, he bowed his head and bent his knee.

"I did not understand you, madame," he said to her, in an altered voice;

"I did not appreciate your worth; I was unworthy of you, and I blush for

it."

"Do not say so, Lionel," she rejoined, putting out her hand to raise

him. "When you knew me, I was not what I am to-day. If the past could be

lived again, if to-day I should receive the homage of a man occupying

your position in society----"

"Hypocrite!" thought Lionel; "she is adored by the Comte de Morangy, the

most fashionable of great noblemen!"

"If," she continued, modestly, "I had to decide upon the outward, public

life of a man whom I loved, I should perhaps be able to add to his

good-fortune, instead of destroying it."

"Is this an overture?" thought Lionel, completely bewildered.

And in his confusion he pressed Lavinia's hand fervently to his lips. At

the same time, he glanced at that hand, which was remarkably white and

pretty. In a woman's younger days, her hands are often red and swollen;

later, they become white, grow longer, and assume more graceful

proportions.

The more he looked at her and listened to her, the more surprised he was

to discover newly acquired charms. Among other things, she spoke English

now with extreme purity, she had retained of the foreign accent and the

awkward locutions, for which Lionel had laughed at her mercilessly, only

so much as was necessary to impart an elegant and charming originality

to her pronunciation and her turn of phrase. It may be that the pride

and timidity formerly prominent in her character were concentrated

somewhere in the depths of her being; but there was no outward

indication of them. Less downright, less stinging, less poetic, perhaps,

than she used to be, she was far more fascinating in Lionel's eyes; she

was more in accord with his ideas, more in accord with society.

How shall I tell it? After an hour's conversation, Lionel had forgotten

the ten years that separated him from Lavinia, or rather he had

forgotten his whole life; he fancied that he was with a strange woman,

whom he loved for the first time; for the past showed him Lavinia

sullen, jealous, and exacting; moreover, it showed him Lionel guilty in

his own eyes; and, as Lavinia understood how painful his memories might

be, she had the delicacy to touch upon them only with the utmost

precaution.

They told each other the story of their lives since their separation.

Lavinia questioned him concerning his new love with the impartiality of

a sister; she extolled Miss Ellis's beauty, and inquired with kindly

interest about her disposition and the advantages that such a marriage

was likely to afford her former friend. For her own part, she told, in a

disjointed, but clever and entertaining way, of her travels, her

friendships, her marriage to an old nobleman, her widowhood, and the use

she had since made of her wealth and her liberty. There was no little

irony in all that she said; while she rendered homage to the power of

reason, a little secret bitterness against that imperious power showed

itself now and then, betrayed itself in the guise of badinage. But pity

and indulgence were predominant in that heart, ravaged so early in life,

and imparted to it a touch of grandeur which raised it above all other

hearts.

More than an hour had passed. Lionel did not count the moments; he

abandoned himself to his new impressions with the sudden and ephemeral

ardor which is the last remaining faculty of worn-out hearts. He tried,

by all possible hints, to enliven the interview by leading Lavinia to

talk of the real condition of her heart; but his efforts were of no

avail: the woman was quicker and more adroit than he. When he thought

that he had touched a chord, he found that he had only a hair in his

hand. When he hoped that he was about to grasp her moral being, and hold

it fast in order to analyze it, the phantom slipped away like a breath,

and fled, intangible as the air.

Suddenly they heard a violent knocking; the noise of the torrent,

drowning everything, had prevented their hearing the first blows, and

they were now repeated impatiently. Lady Lavinia started.

"It is Henry coming to remind me," said Sir Lionel; "but, if you will

deign to grant me a few moments more, I will go to tell him to wait. May

I hope to obtain that favor, madame?"

Lionel was preparing to persist obstinately in his entreaties, when Pepa

entered hurriedly.

"Monsieur le Comte de Morangy insists upon coming in," she said to her

mistress, in Portuguese. "He is at the door, he won't listen to a

word----"

"Ah! great heaven!" cried Lavinia, ingenuously, in English; "he is so

jealous! What am I to do with you, Lionel?"

Lionel stood as if struck by lightning.

"Show him in," said Lavinia, hastily, to the negress. "And do you"--to

Sir Lionel--"go out on the balcony. It is a magnificent night; you can

wait there five minutes, to do me a favor."

And she pushed him onto the balcony. Then she dropped the dimity

curtain, and turned to the count, who entered the room at that moment.

"What is the meaning of the noise you are making?" she said, calmly. "It

is a regular invasion."

"Oh! forgive me, madame!" cried Morangy; "on my knees I implore my

pardon. When I saw you leave the ball suddenly with Pepa, I thought that

you were ill. You have not been well these last few days, and I was so

frightened! In God's name, forgive me, Lavinia! I am a fool, a

madman--but I love you so dearly that I no longer know what I am doing."

While the count was speaking, Lionel, hardly recovered from his

surprise, flew into a violent rage.

"Insolent creature!" he thought, "to dare to ask me to be present at a

tête-à-tête with her lover! Ah! if this is premeditated revenge, if

it is a wilful insult, let them beware of me! But what folly! if I

should show my anger, it would simply make her triumph. No! I will look

on at the love scene with the coolness of a true philosopher."

He leaned toward the window, and ventured to enlarge, with the end of

his riding-crop, the chink between the curtains. He was thus able to see

and hear.

The Comte de Morangy was one of the handsomest men in France, tall and

fair, with a face that was more imposing than expressive, elaborately

curled and frizzled, a dandy from head to foot. His voice was soft and

velvety. He lisped a little when he talked; his eyes were large, but

devoid of brilliancy; his mouth fine and sneering, his hand as white as

a woman's, and his foot shod with indescribable elegance. In Sir

Lionel's eyes, he was the most formidable rival a man could possibly

have to contend against; he was a foeman worthy of his steel, from his

whiskers to his great toe.

The count spoke French, and Lavinia answered in that tongue, in which

she was as proficient as in English. Another new talent! She listened to

the _red heel's_ insipid speeches with singular patience. The count

ventured upon two or three impassioned sentences, which seemed to Lionel

to depart somewhat from the rules of good taste and dramatic propriety.

Lavinia did not lose her temper; there was not even a suspicion of

mockery in her smile. She urged the count to return first to the ball,

saying that it would not be proper for her to return with him. But he

persisted in his purpose to escort her to the door, swearing that he

would not go inside until she had been there a quarter of an hour. As he

spoke, he seized Lady Blake's hands, which she abandoned to him with

indolent and provoking heedlessness.

Sir Lionel lost his patience.

"I am a great fool," he said to himself, at last, "to look on patiently

at this mystification, when I can go away."

He walked to the end of the balcony. But there was a high balustrade,

and immediately below was a ledge of rocks which bore little resemblance

to a path. Nevertheless, Lionel boldly ventured to climb over the

balustrade, and to walk a few steps along the ledge; but he was soon

brought to a halt, for the ledge terminated abruptly at the water-fall,

and even a chamois would have hesitated to go a step farther. The moon

disclosed to Lionel the depth of that abyss from which only a few inches

of rock separated him. He was obliged to close his eyes to overcome the

vertigo that assailed him, and to crawl slowly back to the balcony. When

he had succeeded in climbing over the balustrade once more, and found

that frail bulwark between him and the precipice, he deemed himself the

most fortunate of men, even though his rival's triumph was the price he

must pay for that shelter. He had no choice but to listen to the Comte

de Morangy's sentimental tirades.

"Madame," he said, "you have played with me too long. It is impossible

that you should not know how I love you, and I think it very cruel of

you to treat me as if I acted on one of those fancies which are born and

die in a day. My love for you is a sentiment that will endure throughout

my days; and if you do not accept my consecration of my life to you, you

will see, madame, that a man of the world may lose all respect for the

proprieties, and throw off the sway of cold reason. Oh! do not reduce me

to despair, or else beware of its effects."

"So you wish me to speak frankly, do you?" replied Lavinia. "Very well;

I will do so. Do you know my story, monsieur?"

"Yes, madame; I know all. I know that a miserable wretch, whom I look

upon as the lowest of men, shamefully deceived you and abandoned you.

The pity which that misfortune arouses in me adds to my fervor. Only

great hearts are doomed to be victims of men and of public opinion."

"But, monsieur," rejoined Lavinia, "you must know that I have been able

to profit by the stern lessons of my destiny; that I am on my guard

to-day against my own heart and against another's. I know that it is not

always in a man's power to keep his oaths, and that whatever he obtains

he misuses. That being so, monsieur, do not hope to move me. If you are

speaking seriously, here is my reply: I am invulnerable. This woman who

has been so decried for her youthful errors, is surrounded henceforth by

a stouter rampart than virtue--distrust."

"Ah! I see that you do not understand me, madame," cried the count,

falling on his knees. "May I be accursed if I have ever had a thought of

presuming upon your misfortunes, to hope for sacrifices which your pride

condemns."

"Are you perfectly sure that you have never had such a thought?" said

Lavinia, with her sad smile.

"Well, I will be frank," said Monsieur de Morangy, with an accent of

truth in which the mannerisms of the great nobleman vanished entirely.

"Perhaps I may have had, before I knew you, the thought which I spurn

now with profound remorse. In your presence, feigning is impossible,

Lavinia; you subdue the will, you reduce cunning to naught, you command

veneration. Oh! since I have known what you are, I swear that my

adoration has been worthy of you. Listen to me, madame, and let me await

my sentence at your feet. I desire to devote my whole future to you by

oaths that cannot be broken. It is an honorable name, I venture to

believe, and a handsome fortune, of which, as you are aware, I am not

vain, that I lay at your feet, as well as a heart that adores you, a

heart that beats for you alone."

"So you really mean to offer me marriage?" said Lady Lavinia, without,

however, exhibiting offensive surprise. "I thank you, monsieur, for this

proof of esteem and attachment."

And she offered him her hand with much warmth.

"God of mercy! she accepts!" cried the count, covering that hand with

kisses.

"No, monsieur," said Lavinia; "I ask you to give me time for

reflection."

"Alas! but may I hope?"

"I do not know; rely, at all events, upon my gratitude. Adieu. Go back

to the ball; I insist upon it. I will be there in an instant."

The count passionately kissed the hem of her cape, and left the room. As

soon as he had closed the door, Lionel put aside the curtain, ready to

receive permission from Lady Blake to return. But she was sitting on the

sofa, with her back to the window. Lionel could see her face reflected

in the mirror opposite them. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, her

attitude dejected and thoughtful. Buried in absorbing meditation, she

had completely forgotten Lionel, and the exclamation of surprise that

escaped her when he suddenly appeared in the room was an ingenuous

avowal of that painful absorption.

He was pale with anger; but he restrained himself.

"You must agree," he said to her, "that I respected your new attachment,

madame. It required the most profound disinterestedness to listen to

insulting remarks about myself, purposely provoked, perhaps,--and to

remain quietly in my hiding-place."

"Purposely?" repeated Lavinia, gazing sternly at him. "How dare you

think so of me, monsieur? If you entertain such ideas, go!"

"No, no; I do not think so," said Lionel, walking toward her, and

grasping her arm excitedly. "Pay no heed to what I say. I am very much

disturbed.--You surely must have relied upon my strength of mind, to

force me to witness such a scene."

"On your strength of mind, Lionel? I don't understand that phrase. You

mean, do you not, that I counted upon your indifference?"

"Laugh at me as much as you choose; be pitiless, trample on me! you have

the right to do it. But I am very unhappy!"

He was deeply moved. Lavinia believed, or pretended to believe, that he

was acting a part.

"Let us have done with this," she said, rising. "You should have taken

advantage of the reply you heard me make just now to the Comte de

Morangy; and yet that man's love does not offend me.--Farewell, Lionel!

Let us part forever, but not in bitterness of spirit. Here are your

letters and your portrait. Come, release my hand; I must return to the

ball."

"You must return to dance with Monsieur de Morangy, I suppose?" said

Lionel, dashing his picture angrily on the floor, and grinding it under

his heel.

"Listen," said Lavinia, slightly pale, but calm; "the Comte de Morangy

offers me high rank and complete rehabilitation in society. My marriage

to an elderly nobleman never cleansed me completely from the cruel stain

that disfigures an abandoned woman. Every one knows that an old man

always receives more than he gives. But a wealthy, noble young man,

envied by all, loved by the women,--that is a very different matter!

That deserves consideration, Lionel; and I am very glad that I have

handled the count carefully thus far. I divined long ago the honesty of

his intentions."

"O woman! vanity never dies in you!" exclaimed Lionel angrily, when she

had gone.

He joined Henry at the inn. His friend was awaiting him impatiently.

"The devil take you, Lionel!" he cried. "Here have I been waiting in my

stirrups a good hour for you! Think of it! two hours for an interview of

this sort! Come, off we go! you can tell me about it on the road."

"Good-night, Henry. Go, tell Miss Margaret that the bolster lying in my

bed is at death's door. I remain here."

"Heavens and earth! what do you say?" cried Henry; "you don't mean to go

to Luchon?"

"I will go some other time; I shall remain here now."

"Why, you are dreaming, man! It isn't possible! You can't have made it

up with Lady Blake?"

"No, not so far as I know; far from it! But I am tired and out of sorts,

lame all over; I am going to remain here."

Henry fell from the clouds. He exhausted all his eloquence to induce

Lionel to go; but, failing utterly, he dismounted, and tossed his bridle

to the hostler.

"Well, if you are determined, I will also stay," he exclaimed. "It seems

to me such a good joke, that I propose to see it through to the end. To

the devil with love-affairs at Bagnères, and the plans we made on the

road! My excellent friend Sir Lionel Bridgemont is giving a performance

for my benefit; I will be an attentive and absorbed witness of his

drama."

Lionel would have given all the world to be rid of this irresponsible,

bantering spy upon his actions; but it was impossible.

"As you are determined to follow me," he said, "I warn you that I am

going to the ball."

"To the ball? very good. Dancing is an excellent remedy for the spleen

and lameness."

Lavinia was dancing with Monsieur de Morangy. Lionel had never seen her

dance. When she had come to England, she knew nothing but the _bolero_,

and she had never ventured to dance it under the austere skies of Great

Britain. Since then, she had learned our contradances, and she displayed

in them the voluptuous grace of the Spaniard combined with an

indefinable touch of English prudery, which tempered its exuberance.

People stood on the benches to watch her dance. The Comte de Morangy was

triumphant. Lionel was lost in the crowd.

[Illustration: _LIONEL SURPRISES LAVINIA._

_When Lavinia returned to her place, Lionel--the

count's attention being distracted for a moment--glided

adroitly to her side, and picked up her fan,

which she had just dropped._]

There is so much vanity in the heart of man! Lionel suffered bitterly to

see her who was long swayed and imprisoned by her love for him, who was

once his alone, and whom the world would not have dared to come to take

from his arms, now free and proud, encompassed by homage, and finding in

every glance revenge or reparation for the past. When she returned to

her place, Lionel--the count's attention being distracted for a

moment--glided adroitly to her side, and picked up her fan, which she

had just dropped. Lavinia did not expect to see him there. A feeble cry

escaped her, and her face turned perceptibly pale.

"Ah! great heaven!" she exclaimed; "I thought that you were on the road

to Bagnères."

"Have no fear, madame," he said, in an undertone; "I will not compromise

you with the Comte de Morangy."

However, he could not restrain himself for long, but soon returned and

asked her to dance.

She accepted his invitation.

"Must I not ask Monsieur le Comte de Morangy's permission also?" he

asked.

The ball lasted until daybreak; Lady Lavinia was sure of making such

functions last as long as she remained. Under cover of the confusion

which always creeps into the most orderly festivity as the night

advances, Lionel was able to speak with her frequently. That night

completely turned his head. Intoxicated by the charms of Lady Blake,

spurred on by the rivalry of the count, irritated by the homage of the

crowd, which constantly thrust itself between him and her, he strove

with all his power to rekindle that extinct passion, and self-esteem

made its spur felt so sharply that he left the ball in a state of

indescribable excitement.

He tried in vain to sleep. Henry, who had paid court to all the women,

and danced all the contradances, snored lustily. As soon as he awoke,

and while rubbing his eyes, he said:

"Well, Lionel, God save us, my dear fellow! this is a very entertaining

episode, this reconciliation between you and my cousin; for you need not

hope to deceive me, I know the secret now. When we entered the ballroom,

Lavinia was sad, and dancing with an absent-minded air; as soon as she

saw you, her eyes lighted up, her brow cleared. She was radiant during

the waltz, when you whirled her through the crowd like a feather. Lucky

Lionel! a lovely fiancée and a fine dowry at Luchon, a lovely mistress

and a grand triumph at Saint-Sauveur!"

"A truce to your nonsense!" said Lionel, angrily. Henry was dressed

first. He went out to see what was going on, and soon returned, making

his accustomed uproar on the staircase.

"Alas! Henry," said his friend, "will you never lose that gasping voice

and that frantic gesticulation? You always act as if you had just

started a hare, and as if you took the people you were talking to for

uncoupled hounds."

"To horse! to horse!" cried Henry. "Lady Lavinia Blake is in the saddle;

she is about starting for Gèdres with ten other young madcaps and

Heaven knows how many beaux, the Comte de Morangy at their head--which

does not mean that she has not the Comte de Morangy in her head, be it

understood!"

"Silence, _clown_!" cried Lionel. "To horse, as you say, and let us be

off!"

The riding-party had the start of them. The road to Gèdres is a steep

path, a sort of staircase cut in the rock, skirting the precipice,

presenting innumerable obstacles to horses, innumerable real dangers to

their riders. Lionel started off at a gallop. Henry thought that he was

mad; but, considering that his honor was involved in not being left

behind, he rode after him. Their arrival created a strange effect on the

caravan. Lavinia shuddered at sight of those two reckless creatures

riding along the edge of a frightful abyss. When she recognized Lionel

and her cousin, she turned pale and nearly fell from her horse. The

Comte de Morangy noticed it, and did not take his eyes from her face. He

was jealous.

His jealousy acted as an additional spur to Lionel. Throughout the day,

he fought obstinately for Lavinia's slightest glance. The difficulty of

speaking to her, the excitement of the ride, the emotions aroused by the

sublime spectacle of the region through which they rode, the clever and

always good-humored resistance of Lady Blake, her skill in managing her

horse, her courage, her grace, the words, always natural and always

poetic, in which she described her sensations,--all combined to stir Sir

Lionel to the depths of his being. It was a very fatiguing day for the

poor woman, beset by two lovers between whom she tried to hold the

scales even; so that she accorded a grateful welcome to her jovial

cousin and his noisy nonsense, when he spurred his horse between her and

her adorers.

At night-fall, the sky was covered with clouds. A severe storm seemed

imminent. The riders quickened their pace, but they were still more than

a league from Saint-Sauveur when the storm burst. It grew very dark; the

horses were frightened, and the Comte de Morangy's ran away with him.

The little cavalcade became scattered, and the utmost efforts of the

guides, who accompanied them on foot, were required to prevent some

serious accident from bringing to a melancholy close a day that had

begun so merrily.

Lionel, lost in the appalling darkness, compelled to walk along the edge

of the cliff, leading his horse, for fear of falling over the precipice

with him, was tormented by the keenest disquietude. He had lost sight of

Lavinia, despite all his efforts, and had been seeking her anxiously for

fifteen minutes, when a flash of lightning revealed the figure of a

woman seated on a rock just above the road. He stopped, listened, and

recognized Lady Blake's voice; but a man was with her; it could be no

one but Monsieur de Morangy. Lionel cursed him in his heart; and, bent

upon disturbing his rival's happiness, if he could do no more, he walked

toward the couple as best he could. What was his joy on recognizing

Henry with his cousin! He, like the kind-hearted, devil-may-care comrade

he was, gave up his place to him, and walked away to hold the horses.

Nothing is so solemn and magnificent as the tumult of a storm in the

mountains. The loud voice of the thunder, rumbling over the chasms, is

repeated and echoes loudly in their depths; the wind, lashing the tall

fir-trees and forcing them against the perpendicular cliff as a garment

clings to the human form, also plunges into the gorges and utters

shrill, long-drawn laments like sobs. Lavinia, absorbed in contemplation

of the imposing spectacle, listened to the numberless noises of the

storm-riven mountain, waiting until another flash should cast its bluish

glare over the landscape. She started when it showed her Sir Lionel

seated by her side, in the place occupied by her cousin a moment before.

Lionel thought that she was frightened by the storm, and he took her

hand to reassure her. Another flash showed her to him, with one elbow

resting on her knee, and her chin on her hand, gazing enthusiastically

at the wonderful scene produced by the raging elements. "Great heaven!"

she exclaimed; "how beautiful it is! how dazzling and soft at once that

blue glare! Did you see the jagged edges of the rock that gleamed like

sapphires, and that livid background against which the ice-clad peaks

towered aloft like giant spectres in their shrouds? Did you notice, too,

that, in the sudden passage from darkness to light and from light to

darkness, everything seemed to move and waver, as if the mountains were

tottering to their fall?"

"I see nothing but you, Lavinia," he said, vehemently; "I hear no voice

but yours, I breathe no air but your breath, I have no emotion except

that of feeling that you are near me. Do you know that I love you madly?

Yes, you know it; you must have seen it to-day, and perhaps you wanted

it to be so. Very well! if that is so, enjoy your triumph. I am at your

feet, I ask you to forgive me and to forget the past,--I ask it with my

face in the dust; I ask you to give me the future, oh! I ask it with

passionate fervor, and you must grant my request, Lavinia; for I want

you with all my heart, and I have rights over you----"

"Rights?" she repeated, withdrawing her hand.

"Does not the wrong I did you give me a right, a ghastly right, Lavinia?

And if you allowed me to assume it in order to ruin your life, can you

take it from me to-day, when I seek to claim it anew and to repair my

crimes?"

We know all that a man can say under such circumstances. Lionel was more

eloquent than I should have been in his place. He became strangely

excited; and, despairing of his ability to overcome Lady Blake's

resistance in any other way, seeing, moreover, that by making a less

complete submission than his rival he gave him a very valuable

advantage, he rose to the same level of devotion: he offered Lavinia his

name and his fortune.

"Can you dream of such a thing?" she said, with emotion. "You would

abandon Miss Ellis, when she is betrothed to you, when your marriage is

already appointed?"

"I will do it," he replied. "I will do what the world will call

insulting and criminal. Perhaps I shall have to atone for it with my

blood; but I am ready to do anything to obtain you; for the greatest

crime of my life is my failure to appreciate you, and my first duty, to

return to you. Oh! speak, Lavinia! give me back the happiness I lost

when I lost you. To-day, I shall know how to appreciate and retain it;

for I, too, have changed: I am no longer the ambitious, restless man

whom an unknown future tormented with its deceitful promises. I know

life to-day, I know what the world and its false splendor are worth. I

know that not one of my triumphs was worth a single glance from you; and

the chimera of happiness I have pursued, has always avoided me until

this day, when it leads me back to you. Oh! Lavinia, do you, too, come

back to me! Who will love you as I will? who will see, as I see, the

grandeur, patience, and pity that your heart contains?"

Lavinia did not speak, but her heart beat with a violence which Lionel

detected. Her hand trembled in his, and she did not try to withdraw it,

nor a lock of hair which the wind had loosened and which Lionel covered

with kisses. They did not feel the rain, which was falling in large but

infrequent drops. The wind had diminished, the sky became somewhat

lighter, and the Comte de Morangy came toward them as quickly as his

lame and shoeless horse, which had nearly killed him by falling over a

rock, could bring him.

Lavinia perceived him at last, and abruptly tore herself away from

Lionel's caresses. Lionel, furious at the interruption, but full of love

and hope, assisted her to remount, and escorted her to her door. There

she said to him, lowering her voice:

"Lionel, you have made me an offer of which I realize the full value. I

cannot reply without mature reflection."

"O God! that is the same reply you gave Monsieur de Morangy!"

"No, no; it is not the same thing," she replied, in an altered voice.

"But your presence here may give rise to many absurd reports. If you

really love me, Lionel, you will swear to obey me."

"I swear it by God and by you."

"Very well! go away at once, and return to Bagnères; on my part, I

promise you that you shall have my reply within forty hours."

"But what will become of me, great God! during that century of

suspense?"

"You will hope," said Lavinia, hurriedly closing the door, as if she

were afraid of saying too much.

Lionel did hope. His reasons for hoping were a word from Lavinia and all

the arguments of his own self-esteem.

"You are wrong to abandon the game," said Henry, as they rode away;

"Lavinia was beginning to melt. On my word, Lionel, that doesn't seem

like you. Even if for no other reason than not to leave Morangy master

of the field---- But I see that you are more in love with Miss Ellis

than I thought."

Lionel was too preoccupied to listen to him. He passed the interval

fixed by Lavinia, locked in his room, representing that he was ill; and

did not deign to confide in Sir Henry, who lost himself in conjectures

concerning his conduct. At last the letter arrived; it was in these

terms:

"_Neither the one nor the other!_ When you receive this letter, when

Monsieur de Morangy, whom I have sent to Tarbes, receives his reply, I

shall be far from you both; I shall have gone, gone forever, gone

irrevocably, so far as you and he are concerned.

"You offer me name and rank and fortune; you believe that a brilliant

position in society has a great fascination for a woman. Oh, no! not for

her who knows society and despises it as I do. Do not think, however,

Lionel, that I disdain the offer you made to sacrifice a brilliant

marriage, and bind yourself to me forever.

"You realized what a cruel blow it is to a woman's self-esteem to be

abandoned, what a glorious triumph it is to bring back a once faithless

swain to her feet, and you thought to compensate me by that triumph for

all I have suffered; so I give you my esteem once more, and I would

forgive you the past had I not done so long ago.

"But understand, Lionel, that it is not in your power to repair the

wrong. No, it is in no man's power. The blow I received was a deadly

blow; it killed the power to love in me forever; it extinguished the

torch of illusions, and life appears to me in a dull and miserable

light.

"But I do not complain of my destiny; it was bound to come, sooner or

later. We all live to grow old, and to see all our joys overshadowed by

disappointments. My disillusionment came when I was rather young, to be

sure, and the craving for love survived for a long while the faculty of

having faith in man. I have struggled long and often against my youth,

as against a desperate foe; I have always succeeded in beating it.

"And do you imagine that this last struggle against you, this resistance

to the promises you have made, is not exceedingly hard and painful? I

may confess it, now that flight has placed me beyond all danger of

surrender: I love you still, I feel it; the imprint of the first object

of one's love is never entirely effaced; it seems to have vanished; we

fall asleep, oblivious of the pain we have suffered; but let the image

of the past arise, let the old idol reappear, and we are ready to bend

the knee as before. Oh! fly, fly, phantom and falsehood! you are but a

shadow, and if I should venture to follow you, you would lead me again

among the reefs, and leave me there shattered and dying. Fly! I no

longer believe in you. I know that you cannot arrange the future as you

will, and that, though your lips may be sincere to-day, the frailty of

your heart will force you to lie to-morrow.

"And why should I blame you for being like that? are we not all weak and

fickle? Was I not myself calm and cold when I approached you yesterday?

Was I not perfectly certain that I could not love you? Had I not

encouraged the Comte de Morangy's suit? And yet, in the evening, when

you sat beside me on that rock, when you spoke, to me in such an

impassioned tone, amid the wind and the storm, did I not feel my heart

soften and melt? Ah! now that I reflect, I know that it was your voice

of the old days, your passion of the old days, you, my first love, my

youth, that came back to me all at once, for a moment!

"And now, when my blood is cool, I feel a deathly depression; for I am

awake, and I remember that I dreamed a lovely dream in the midst of a

melancholy life.

"Farewell, Lionel! Assuming that your desire to marry me should last

until the moment of its fulfilment (and even now, perhaps, you are

beginning to feel that I may be right in refusing you), you would have

been unhappy in the constraint imposed by such a bond; you would have

found that the world--always ungrateful and sparing of praise for our

good deeds--would look upon yours as the performance of a duty, and

would deny you the triumph which perhaps you would expect. Then you

would have thrown away self-content, and have failed to obtain the

admiration upon which you counted. Who knows! perhaps I myself should

have forgotten too quickly all that was noble in your return to me, and

have accepted your new love as a reparation due to your honor. Oh! let

us not mar the hour of honest impulse and mutual confidence we enjoyed

last night; let us remember it always, but never seek to repeat it.

"Have no fear for your self-esteem so far as the Comte de Morangy is

concerned; I have never loved him. He is one of the innumerable weak

creatures who have failed--even with my assistance, alas!--to make my

dead heart beat again. I would not even want him for a husband. A man of

his rank always sells too dear the protection he bestows, by always

making it felt. And then, I detest marriage, I detest all men, I detest

everlasting pledges, promises, plans, the arranging of the future, in

advance, by contracts and bargains at which Destiny always snaps its

fingers. I no longer care for anything but travel, reverie, solitude,

the uproar of the world, to walk through it and laugh at it, and poetry

to endure the past, and God to give me hope for the future."

Sir Lionel Bridgemont's self-esteem was deeply mortified at first; for,

to console those readers who may have become too warmly interested in

him, we must say that in forty hours he had reflected seriously. In the

first place, he thought of taking horse, following Lady Blake,

overcoming her resistance, and triumphing over her cold common-sense.

Then he thought that she might persist in her refusal, and that,

meanwhile, Miss Ellis might take offence at his conduct, and break off

the match.--He remained.

"Well," said Henry to him, the next day, when he saw him kiss Miss

Margaret's hand, who bestowed that mark of forgiveness on him, after a

sharp quarrel concerning his absence; "next year, we will enter

Parliament."

[Footnote 2: Written thus, in English, in the original.]