“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