"There you wrong me," he said. "I am devout; I am a lover of the
Scriptures--their beauty haunts me; I go to mass--its dignity
affects me; and I have prayed, as in my youth I wrote verses. It
is not a matter of morality, but of temperament. A man may be
religious and yet be evil. Satan fell, but he believed and he
admired, as the English Milton wisely shows it."
I was most glad that my father came between us at that moment;
but before Monsieur left, he said to me, "You have challenged
me. Beware: I have begun this chase. Yet I would rather be your
follower, rather have your arrow in me, than be your hunter." He
said it with a sort of warmth, which I knew was a glow in his
senses merely; he was heated with his own eloquence.
"Wait," returned I. "You have heard the story of King Artus?"
He thought a moment. "No, no. I never was a child as other
children. I was always comrade to the imps."
"King Artus," said I, "was most fond of hunting." (It is but a
legend with its moral, as you know.) "It was forbidden by the
priests to hunt while mass was being said. One day, at the lifting
of the host, the King, hearing a hound bay, rushed out, and
gathered his pack together; but as they went, a whirlwind caught
them up into the air, where they continue to this day, following
a lonely trail, never resting, and all the game they get is one
fly every seventh year. And now, when all on a sudden at night you
hear the trees and leaves and the sleepy birds and crickets stir,
it is the old King hunting--for the fox he never gets."
Monsieur looked at me with curious intentness. "You have a great
gift," he said; "you make your point by allusion. I follow you.
But see: when I am blown into the air I shall not ride alone.
Happiness is the fox we ride to cover, you and I, though we find
but a firefly in the end."
"A poor reply," I remarked easily; "not worthy of you."
"As worthy as I am of you," he rejoined; then he kissed my hand.
"I will see you at mass to-morrow."
Unconsciously, I rubbed the hand he kissed with my handkerchief.
"I am not to be provoked," he said. "It is much to have you treat
my kiss with consequence."
March 25. No news of Robert all this month. Gabord has been away
in Montreal. I see Voban only now and then, and he is strange in
manner, and can do nothing. Mathilde is better--so still and
desolate, yet not wild; but her memory is all gone, all save for
that "Francois Bigot is a devil." My father has taken anew a
strong dislike to Monsieur Doltaire, because of talk that is
abroad concerning him and Madame Cournal. I once thought she was
much sinned against, but now I am sure she is not to be defended.
She is most defiant, though people dare not shut their doors
against her. A change seemed to come over her all at once,
and over her husband also. He is now gloomy and taciturn, now
foolishly gay, yet he is little seen with the Intendant, as
before. However it be, Monsieur Doltaire and Bigot are no longer
intimate. What should I care for that, if Monsieur Doltaire had no
power, if he were not the door between Robert and me? What care I,
indeed, how vile he is, so he but serve my purpose? Let him try my
heart and soul and senses as he will; I will one day purify myself
of his presence and all this soiling, and find my peace in Robert's
arms--or in the quiet of a nunnery.
This morning I got up at sunrise, it being the Annunciation of
the Virgin, and prepared to go to mass in the chapel of the
Ursulines. How peaceful was the world! So still, so still. The
smoke came curling up here and there through the sweet air of
spring, a snowbird tripped along the white coverlet of the earth,
and before a Calvary, I saw a peasant kneel and say an Ave as he
went to market. There was springtime in the sun, in the smell of
the air; springtime everywhere but in my heart, which was all
winter. I seemed alone--alone--alone. I felt the tears start. But
that was for a moment only, I am glad to say, for I got my courage
again, as I did the night before when Monsieur Doltaire placed his
arm at my waist, and poured into my ears a torrent of protestations.
I did not move at first. But I could feel my cheeks go to stone,
and something clamp my heart. Yet had ever man such hateful
eloquence! There is that in him--oh, shame! oh, shame!--which goes
far with a woman. He has the music of passion, and though it is
lower than love, it is the poetry of the senses. I spoke to him
calmly, I think, begging him place his merits where they would have
better entertainment; but I said hard, cold things at last, when
other means availed not; which presently made him turn upon me in
another fashion.
His words dropped slowly, with a consummate carefulness, his
manner was pointedly courteous, yet there was an underpressure of
force, of will, which made me see the danger of my position. He
said that I was quite right; that he would wish no privilege of a
woman which was not given with a frank eagerness; that to him no
woman was worth the having who did not throw her whole nature into
the giving. Constancy--that was another matter. But a perfect gift
while there was giving at all--that was the way.
"There is something behind all this," he said. "I am not so
vain as to think any merits of mine would influence you. But my
devotion, my admiration of you, the very force of my passion,
should move you. Be you ever so set against me--and I do not
think you are--you should not be so strong to resist the shock of
feeling. I do not know the cause, but I will find it out; and when
I do, I shall remove it or be myself removed." He touched my arm
with his fingers. "When I touch you like that," he said, "summer
riots in my veins. I will not think that this which rouses me so
is but power upon one side, and effect upon the other. Something
in you called me to you, something in me will wake you yet. Mon
Dieu, I could wait a score of years for my touch to thrill you
as yours does me! And I will--I will."
"You think it suits your honour to force my affections?" I asked;
for I dared not say all I wished.
"What is there in this reflecting on my honour?" he answered.
"At Versailles, believe me, they would say I strive here for a
canonizing. No, no; think me so gallant that I follow you to serve
you, to convince you that the way I go is the way your hopes will
lie. Honour? To fetch you to the point where you and I should
start together on the Appian Way, I would traffic with that, even,
and say I did so, and would do so a thousand times, if in the end
it put your hand in mine. Who, who can give you what I offer, can
offer? See: I have given myself to a hundred women in my time--but
what of me? That which was a candle in a wind, and the light went
out. There was no depth, no life, in that; only the shadow of a
man was there those hundred times. But here, now, the whole man
plunges into this sea, and he will reach the lighthouse on the
shore, or be broken on the reefs. Look in my eyes, and see the
furnace there, and tell me if you think that fire is for cool
corners in the gardens at Neuilly or for the Hills of--" He suddenly
broke off, and a singular smile followed. "There, there," he said,
"I have said enough. It came to me all at once how droll my speech
would sound to our people at Versailles. It is an elaborate irony
that the occasional virtues of certain men turn and mock them. That
is the penalty of being inconsistent. Be saint or imp; it is the
only way. But this imp that mocks me relieves you of reply. Yet I
have spoken truth, and again and again I will tell it you, till
you believe according to my gospel."
How glad I was that he himself lightened the situation! I had been
driven to despair, but this strange twist in his mood made all
smooth for me. "That 'again and again' sounds dreary," said I. "It
might almost appear I must sometime accept your gospel, to cure you
of preaching it, and save me from eternal drowsiness."
We were then most fortunately interrupted. He made his adieus,
and I went to my room, brooded till my head ached, then fell
a-weeping, and wished myself out of the world, I was so sick and
weary. Now and again a hot shudder of shame and misery ran through
me, as I thought of monsieur's words to me. Put them how he would,
they sound an insult now, though as he spoke I felt the power of
his passion. "If you had lived a thousand years ago, you would
have loved a thousand times," he said to me one day. Sometimes I
think he spoke truly; I have a nature that responds to all
eloquence in life.
Robert, I have bared my heart to thee. I have hidden nothing. In
a few days I shall go back to the city with my mother, and when I
can I will send news; and do thou send me news also, if thou canst
devise a safe way. Meanwhile, I have written my brother Juste to
be magnanimous, and to try for thy freedom. He will not betray me,
and he may help us. I have begged him to write to thee a letter
of reconcilement.
And now, comrade of my heart, do thou have courage. I also shall
be strong as I am ardent. Having written thee, I am cheerful once
more; and when again I may, I will open the doors of my heart that
thou mayst come in. That heart is thine, Robert. Thy