Part 14

There was so much friendly solicitude in the tone of the Marquis, that Caroline did not think of refusing his offer. "Who knows," thought she, "that he does not wish to bid me a brotherly adieu before entering upon his new existence? It is, indeed, a thing which is allowable for us to do,--which perhaps we ought to do. He has never yet spoken to me of his marriage; it would be strange if he did not speak to me about it, and if I were not prepared and willing to hear him."

XVI

The Marquis made a sign for the coachman to follow them, and conducted Caroline on foot, chatting pleasantly with her about her sister and the children; but, neither during this short walk, nor on the shaded avenues of the "Swiss Valley" in the Jardin des Plantes, did he say one word about himself. It was only when he stopped with her under the pendent boughs of Jussieu's cedar, just as they were on the point of returning, that he said, smiling, and in the most indifferent tone, "Do you know that my official presentation to Mlle de Xaintrailles takes place to-day?"

It seemed to the Marquis that he felt Caroline's arm trembling as it rested on his own; but she replied, with sincerity and resolution, "No, I did not know that it was to-day."

"If I speak to you at all about this," he resumed, "it is only because I know my mother and my brother have kept you informed of this fine project. I have never talked with you about it myself; it was not worth while."

"Then you thought that I would not be interested in your happiness?"

"My happiness! How can it be in the hands of a lady I do not know? And you, my friend, how can you speak so,--you who know me?"

"Then I will say the happiness of your mother,--since that depends upon this marriage."

"O, that is another matter," replied M. de Villemer, quickly. "Shall we rest a moment on this seat, and while we are alone here will you let me talk a little about my position?"

They seated themselves. "You will not be cold?" continued the Marquis, wrapping the folds of Caroline's mantle around her.

"No, and you?"

"O, as for me, my health is robust now, thanks to you, and that is why they think seriously of making me the head of a family of my own. It is a happiness which I do not need so much as they suppose. There are already children in the world that one loves,--just as you love those of your sister! But let us pass that over and suppose that I really dream of descendants in a long line. You understand that I do not hold to this as a point of family pride; you know my ideas about nobility; they are not precisely those of the people around me. Unfortunately for the people around me, I cannot change in this regard; it no longer depends upon myself."

"I know that," replied Mlle de Saint-Geneix, "but your heart is too comprehensive not to long after the warmest and holiest affections of life."

"Suppose all that you please in that respect," replied the Marquis, "and then understand that the choice of the mother of my children is the most important affair of my life. Well, then, this great transaction, this sacred choice, do you think any one else could attend to it in my place? Do you admit that even my excellent mother can wake up some morning and say, 'There is in society a young lady, whose name is illustrious and whose fortune is large, and who is to be the wife of my son, because my friends and I consider the match advantageous and proper? My son does not know her, but no matter! Perhaps she will not please him at all; perhaps he will displease her as much; no matter again! It would please my eldest son, my friend the duchess, and all those who frequent my little drawing-room. My son must be unnatural if he does not sacrifice his repugnance to this fancy. And if Mlle de Xaintrailles should think of such a thing as not calling him perfect, she will be no longer worthy of the name she bears!' You see plainly, my friend, that all this is absurd, and I am astonished that you have taken it seriously for one moment."

Caroline struggled in vain against the inexpressible joy which this assurance caused her; but she quickly remembered all the Duke had said, and all that duty required her to say herself.

"You astonish me too," rejoined she. "Did you not promise your mother and your brother to see Mlle de Xaintrailles at the appointed time?"

"And so I shall see her this evening; it is an interview arranged in such a way as to appear accidental, and one which does not bind me in any respect."

"That is an evasion which I cannot admit in a conscience like that of the Marquis de Villemer. You have passed your word that you will do your best toward recognizing the merit of this person, and making her appreciate yours."

"O, I ask nothing better than to do my best in that direction," replied the Marquis, with so merry and winning a laugh that Caroline was dazzled by the look he fixed upon her.

"Then you are making light of your mother's wishes?" resumed she, arming herself with all her reserve of resistance; "I never would have believed you capable of that."

"No, no, I am not, indeed," replied M. de Villemer, recovering his seriousness. "When they exacted this promise from me I did not laugh, I assure you. I was in deep sorrow and seriously ill; I felt myself dying, and I thought my heart was already dead. I yielded to tender and cruel persuasions, in the hope that they would let me die in peace; but I have been recalled, my friend; I have taken a new lease of life; I feel myself full of youth again, and of the future. Love is astir within me, like the sap in this great tree; yes, love,--that is, faith, strength, a sense of my immortal being, which I must account for to God, and not to human prejudice. I will be happy in my own way; I will live, and I will not marry unless I can love with my whole soul!

"Do not tell me," continued he, without giving Caroline time to reply, "that I have other duties in opposition to this. I am not a weak, irresolute man. I am not satisfied with words consecrated by usage, and I do not propose to become the slave and the victim of ambitious chimeras. My mother desires to recover our wealth! She is at fault in that. Her true happiness and her true glory are in having renounced it all to save her eldest son. She is richer now--since I have arranged for her support at the price of nearly all I have left--than she was ten years ago, submitting with terror to a doubtful situation, and one which she believed must grow worse. See, then, if I have not done for her all that I could do! I have certain strong opinions, the fruit of the study and thought of my whole life. I have held them in silence. I have suffered terribly from griefs which she has never suspected. I have been in real torture from my own heart, and I have spared her the pain of seeing my agony. I have even suffered at her hands and have never complained. Have I not seen, from childhood, that she had an irresistible preference for my brother, and did I not know, besides, that she thought this due to the oldest and most highly titled of her sons? I have conquered the vexation of this wound, and when my brother at last permitted me to love him, I did love him devotedly; but before that time how many secret affronts and bitter jests I have brooked from him, and from my mother too, in league with him against the seriousness of my thought and life! I bore them no ill-will for this; I understood their mistakes and prejudices; but without knowing it, they did me much harm.

"In the midst of so many vexations, only one thing could tempt a solitary man like me,--the glory of letters. I felt within me a certain fire, an impulse towards the beautiful, which might draw around me manifold sympathies. I saw that this glory would wound my mother in her beliefs, and I determined to keep the most strict incognito, that the paternity of my work might not even be suspected. You alone, you only in the whole world, have been intrusted with a secret which is never to be disclosed. I will not add, during my mother's lifetime, for I have a horror of these mental reservations, these parricidal schemes, which seem like calling death down upon those whom we ought to love better than ourselves. I have said 'never' in this matter, so as never to entertain the idea of any state of things in which a personal gratification could lessen my grief at losing my mother."

"Very well! in all this, I like you as much as I admire you," replied Mlle de Saint-Geneix; "but it strikes me, that with respect to your marriage, it can all be arranged as it ought, with due regard to your own wishes and to those of your family. Since they say that Mlle de Xaintrailles is entirely worthy of you, why, at the moment of assuring yourself of this, do you say beforehand that it is neither possible nor probable! This is where I do not comprehend you at all, and where I doubt if you have any serious or respectable reasons that I could be brought to accept."

Caroline spoke with a decision which at once changed the resolution of the Marquis. He was on the point of opening his heart to her at all hazards; he had felt himself guided onward by a glimmer of hope, of which she had now deprived him, and he became sad, and seemingly quite overcome.

"Well, you see," resumed she, "you can find no answer to this."

"You are not wrong," said he; "I had no right to tell you that I should certainly be indifferent to Mlle de Xaintrailles. I know it myself; but you cannot be a judge of the secret reasons that give me this certainty. Let us say no more about her. I expect you to be thoroughly convinced of my independence and clear conscience in this matter. I would not have a thought like this remaining in your mind, M. de Villemer is to marry for money, for position, and for a name. O my friend, never believe that of me, I beg of you. To fall so low in your esteem would be a punishment which I have not merited through any fault, by any wrong against you or against my family. I expect, likewise, that you will not reproach me, if I should happen to find myself obliged openly to oppose my mother's wishes with regard to my marriage. I have felt it my duty to tell you all that justifies me in a pretended eccentricity. Be so good as to absolve me beforehand if, sooner or later, I have to show her and my brother that I will give them my blood, my life, my last franc and even my honor, if need be, but not my moral freedom, not my truth to myself. No, never! These are my own, these are the only possessions I reserve, for they come from God, and man has no claim upon them."

As he spoke thus, the Marquis laid his hand upon his heart with a forcible pressure. His face, at once energetic and charming, expressed his enthusiastic faith. Caroline, bewildered, was afraid of having understood aright and yet equally afraid lest she might have deceived herself; but what mattered that which, thus against her will, passed in her mind? She must pretend not to suppose that the Marquis could ever think of her. She had great courage and invincible pride. She answered that it was not for her to decide upon the future: but that, for her own part, she had loved her father so much that she would have sacrificed her own heart even, if, by a complete renunciation of herself, she could have prolonged his life. "Take care," said she with spirit, "whatever you may decide upon to-day or afterward, always remember this; that when beloved parents are no more, all that we might have done to render their lives longer or happier will come before us with terrible eloquence. The slightest short-coming then assumes enormous proportions; and there will never be a moment of peace or happiness for one who, even while using all his rightful freedom, gains the memory of having seriously grieved a mother who is no more."

The Marquis pressed Caroline's hand silently and convulsively; she had hurt him deeply, for she had spoken the truth.

She rose, and he conducted her to the carriage again. "Be content," said he, breaking the silence as he was about leaving her. "I will never openly wound my mother. Pray for me, that I may have eloquence to convince her when the time comes. If I do not succeed--Well, what is that to you? It will be so much the worse for me."

He flung the address to the coachman and disappeared.

XVII

It was no longer possible for Caroline to feel a doubt of the sentiment she had inspired. To avoid responding to it, she had but one line of defence, which was to act either as if she had never suspected it, or as if she did not suppose the Marquis would dare to speak of it a second time to her, even indirectly. She resolved to discourage him so completely that he would never recur to the subject, and not to remain alone with him long enough for him to lose his natural timidity under the impulse of increasing emotion.

When she had thus marked out her course of conduct, she hoped to be at peace; but, after all, she had to give way to natural feelings, and sob as if her heart would break. She wisely yielded to this grief, saying to herself, that, since it must be so, it was better for her to suffer from a momentary weakness than to struggle against herself too much. She well knew that in a direct contest our instinctive self-love awakes, in spite of us, and leads us to seek some side issue, some compromise with the austerity of duty or destiny. She refused, then, to dream or reflect; it was better for her to hide her head and weep.

She did not see M. de Villemer again until evening, just as the ordinary visitors of the family were taking leave; he came in with the Duke, both of them in evening dress. They had just returned from the residence of the Duchess de Dunières.

Caroline would have retired immediately. The Marchioness detained her, saying, "O, so much the worse, my dear, you will have to sit up a little later this evening. It's worth while though; we are going to hear what has happened."

Before long the explanation was forthcoming. The Duke had an undefined look as of astonishment; but the countenance of the Marquis was open and calm. "Mother," said he, "I have seen Mlle de Xaintrailles. She is beautiful, amiable, full of attractions; I can't imagine any sentiments which she might not inspire in the man who has the good fortune to please her; but I have had no such good fortune. She would n't look at me twice,--so entirely did the first glance suffice for her to pass judgment on me."

And as the Marchioness was silent in utter consternation, the Marquis took her hands, adding, as he kissed them, "But this need n't affect you the least in the world. On the contrary, I have come back full of dreams and plans and hopes. There is in the air--O, I felt it at once--quite another marriage than this, and one which will give you infinitely more pleasure!"

Caroline felt herself dying and reviving by turns at every word she heard; but she also knew the eyes of the Duke were fastened upon her, and she said to herself that perhaps the Marquis was stealthily watching her, between each of his phrases. So she kept her countenance. It was plain that she had wept; but her sister's departure might be the only cause. She had acknowledged it, and the Marquis had himself witnessed her tears on that occasion.

"Come, my son," said the Marchioness, "don't keep me in suspense, and if you are talking seriously--"

"No, no," said the Duke, mincing gracefully, "it is n't serious."

"But, indeed, it is," cried Urbain, who was unusually gay; "it's on the programme for the most plausible and delightful thing in the world!"

"It's singular enough, at least--and spicy enough," rejoined the Duke.

"Come now, do stop your riddles," cried the Marchioness.

"Well, let us have it," said the Duke to his brother with a smile.

"I propose to do that; I ask nothing better," replied the Marquis; "it's quite a story, and I must proceed with it in order. Imagine, my dear mamma, our arrival at the Duchess's, both as fine as you see us now,--no, finer still, for there was on our faces that air of conquest which suits my brother so well, and which I attempted for the first time, but with no success at all, as you shall see."

"That means," rejoined the Duke, "that you had an air of prodigious abstraction, and began operations by looking at a portrait of Anne of Austria, lately placed in the drawing-room of the Duchess, instead of looking at Mlle de Xaintrailles."

"Ah!" said the Marchioness, sighing, "it was very lovely then, this portrait?"

"Very lovely," replied Urbain. "You will say it was no time for me to be noticing this; but you are going to see how fortunate it was, after all, that it happened. Mlle Diana was seated by the corner of the mantel; with Mlle de Dunières and two or three other young ladies of haughty ancestry more or less English. While my distracted eyes are hanging upon the plump countenance of our late queen, Gaëtan, thinking me close at his heels, goes directly, in his capacity of elder brother, to salute first the Duchess, then her daughter and the whole juvenile group, singling out at once, with an eagle eye, the beautiful Diana, whom he had n't seen since she was five years old. Having promenaded his bewitching smile into this privileged corner, and traversed the other groups with that meek and triumphant elegance which belongs to him alone, he returns to me, just as I am beginning my evolution toward the Duchess, and says in an angry tone though in a low voice, 'Come on! what are you about there?' I dart forward, I salute the Duchess in my turn, I try to look at my betrothed; she had her back turned to me squarely. An evil omen! I retreat to the mantel-piece, in order to display all my advantages. The Duchess addresses some conversation to me, charitably bent on giving me a chance to shine. And I--why, I was ready to talk like a book; but it was all for nothing; Mlle de Xaintrailles never looked at me and listened still less; she was whispering to her young companions. At last she turns round and darts at me a glance full of wonder and most decidedly cool. I am introduced to her neighbor, Mlle de Dunières, a young girl slightly deformed, but brilliant intellectually it seemed to me, and who was very evidently nudging her friend with her elbow; but all in vain, and I return to my rostrum, that is, to the mantel-piece, without having called up the faintest blush. I do not lose my self-possession, but, resuming conversation with the Duke, I go on making some very judicious remarks about the session of the Chambers, when, all at once, I hear the music of charming bursts of laughter, poorly suppressed, from the young ladies in the corner. Probably they found me stupid. I am not confounded, however; I continue; and after having properly shown the fluency of my elocution, I inquire about the historical portrait, to the great satisfaction of the Duke de Dunières, who thinks of nothing but having his picture appreciated. While he is leading me toward it to examine it and admire the beauty of its execution, my brother quietly takes my place and on my return I find him installed between the arm-chair of the Duchess and that of her daughter, close by Mlle Diana, in the midst of the group, joining in the chat of the young ladies."

"Is this true, my son?" asked the Marchioness of the Duke, with anxiety.

"It is quite true," replied the Duke, ingenuously. "I laid siege to the fortress; I took a position. I expected Urbain to manœuvre so as to come to my support; but no, the traitor leaves me alone exposed to the fire, and you see I have to get off as I can. What took place meanwhile? He is going to tell you."

"Alas! I know more than enough," said the Marchioness, in despair; "he was thinking of something else."

"Pardon me, mamma," replied the Marquis, "I had no wish to do so and no time either, for the Duchess, leaving Gaëtan engaged with the young ladies, took me aside, and, laughing in spite of herself, said these memorable words, which I report _verbatim_: 'My dear Marquis, what has taken place here this evening is like a scene in a comedy. Just imagine to yourself that the young person--whom it is useless to name--takes you for your brother, and consequently persists in taking your brother for you. We tell her she is mistaken, but all in vain; she will have it that we are deceiving her, that she is not to be taken in so--and--must I tell you the whole?'

"'Yes, certainly, Madame de Dunières; you are too much my mother's friend to let me sail on a false course!'

"'Yes, yes, that 's it! I ought not to leave you on the wrong track, I should be really distressed at that, and you must know at once how matters stand. They find the Duke charming, and you--'

"'And me absurd? Come! be frank clear to the end.'

"'You! You are not thought of at all, you are not seen, you are nothing, no one is heard but the Duke! If I did n't know you were very fond of your brother, I should never tell you this--'

"I reassured the Duchess so earnestly, I expressed so much joy over the idea that my brother was preferred to me, that she replied, 'Well done! why, here we are in a romance! When it is known the Duke is the one who pleases, don't you expect a great outcry?'

"'Why, who will make it? You, Madame de Dunières?'

"'Perhaps so, but it 's certain _she_ will! Well, now, all this must be explained. Come with me and see what is going on; we cannot part on the strength of a _quid pro quo._'

"'No, no,' I said to the Duchess, 'you must listen to me first. Here I have a cause to plead which is a hundred times dearer than my own. You have said something that alarms me, at which I feel a real concern, and I beg you will take it back. You seem disposed to decide against my brother in case your amiable god-daughter should pardon him for not being the Marquis. As I am sure, now, that she will pardon him without difficulty, if she has not done so already, I want to understand your objections to him, in order to do battle against them. My brother has, on his father's side, a descent far more illustrious than my own; he has all the traits of a true gentleman, and all the attractions of an agreeable man; as for me, I am not a man of the world, and, if I must avow all, I have some tendency toward being a liberal.'

"The Duchess made a gesture of horror; then she began to laugh, thinking I was in jest."

"Knowing you were in jest, my son!" interposed the Marchioness, in a tone of reproach.

"Good or poor," rejoined the Marquis, "the joke had no ill effect. The Duchess let me set off my brother's merits, agreed with me that a man of rank, who has never forfeited his honor, has a right to ruin himself financially, that a life of pleasure has always been well received in high circles, when there is wisdom enough to leave it behind in season, to accept poverty nobly, and to show one's self superior to one's follies. Finally, I appealed to the friendship of the Duchess for you, to the desire she had felt for an alliance with you on the part of her god-daughter, and I had the good fortune to be so persuasive that she promised not to influence the choice of Mlle de Xaintrailles."

"Ah! my son, what have you done?" cried the Marchioness, trembling. "I recognize your good heart in it all, but it is a dream! A girl brought up in a convent will certainly be afraid of a conquering hero like this vain fellow. She would never dare to trust him."

"Stop, mother," resumed the Marquis, "I have n't finished my story. When we returned to the young ladies, Mile. Diana was calling my brother 'Your Grace,' as boldly as you please. She was talking and laughing with him, and I was allowed to aid him in shining before her. However, he had no great need of me. She drew him out brilliantly herself, and I found she was n't sorry to show us in her replies that she was quite witty, and that mirth suited her excellently."