Part 5

"Like Orestes and Pylades," answered the Duke, "and you could n't imagine, dear mother, how fine it all was. And then I made a delightful discovery there, namely, that I have a charming brother. O, the word seems frivolous to you when applied to him; very well, I at least do not understand it in its trivial sense. The charm of the understanding is occasionally the charm of the heart, and my brother has them both."

The Marchioness smiled again, but she soon became thoughtful; a cloud passed athwart her mind. "Gaëtan should be pained to receive his brother's sacrifice," she thought; "he takes it too lightly; perhaps he has lost his pride. Heavens! that would be fatal to him."

Urbain saw this cloud and hastened to dissipate it. "For my part," he said, addressing his mother cheerfully and tenderly, "I will not say in return that my brother is more charming than I am, for that is too apparent; but I will say that I have also made a discovery, which is that he has admirable and serious depths in his nature, and an unalterable respect for all that is true. Yes," he added, in instinctive reply to the profoundly astonished look of Caroline, "there is in him a veritable candor which no one suspects, and which I have never before fully appreciated."

"My children," said the Marchioness, "it does me good to hear you speak thus of each other; you touch my pride in the most sensitive place, and I am really led to believe that you are both right."

"As far as it concerns me," rejoined the Duke, "you think so because you are the best of mothers; but you are blind. I am good for nothing at all, and the sad smile of Mlle de Saint-Geneix says plainly enough that you and my brother are both deceiving yourselves."

"What! I smiled!" cried Caroline, in stupefaction; "have I looked sad? I could take my oath that I have not raised my eyes from this decanter, and that I have been meditating profoundly upon the qualities of crown-glass."

"Do not fancy we believe," returned Gaëtan, "that your thoughts are always absorbed by household cares. I believe that they are frequently elevated far above the region of decanters, and that you judge of men and things from a very high stand-point."

"I allow myself to judge no one, your Grace."

"So much the worse for those who are not worth the exercise of your judgment. They could but gain by knowing it, however severe it might be. I myself, for instance, like to be judged by women. From their mouths I like a frank condemnation better than the silence of disdain or of mistrust. I regard women as the only beings really capable of appreciating our failings or our good qualities."

"But, Madame de Villemer," said Caroline to the Marchioness in a distressed manner which was sportively assumed, "please tell his Grace the Duke that I have not the honor of knowing him at all, and that I am not here to continue in my head the portraits of La Bruyère."

"Dear child," replied the Marchioness, "you are here to be a sort of adopted daughter, to whom everything is permitted, because we are aware of your fine discretion and your perfect modesty. Do not hesitate therefore to answer my son, and do not be disturbed by his friendly attempt to tease you. He knows as well as I do who you are, and he will never be wanting in the respect which is your due."

"This time, mother, I accept the compliment," said the Duke, in a tone of entire frankness. "I have the profoundest respect for every pure, generous, and devoted woman, and consequently for Mlle de Saint-Geneix in particular."

Caroline did not blush, or stammer the thanks of a prude governess. She looked the Duke squarely in the eyes, saw that he was not at all mocking her, and answered him with kindness,--

"Why, then, your Grace, having so generous an opinion of me, do you suppose that I permit myself to have a bad one of you?"

"O, I have my reasons," answered the Duke; "I will tell them to you when you know me better."

"Well, but why not now?" said the Marchioness; "it would be the preferable way."

"So be it," rejoined the Duke. "It is an anecdote. I will tell it. Day before yesterday I was alone in your drawing-room, waiting for you, mother mine. I was musing in a corner, and finding myself comfortably seated upon one of your little sofas,--I had that morning been training an unruly horse and was as tired as an ox,--I was meditating upon the destiny of cappadine seats in general, as Mlle de Saint-Geneix was just meditating upon that of crown-glass, and I said to myself, 'How astonished these sofas and easy-chairs would be to find themselves in a stable or in a cattle-shed! And how troubled those beautiful ladies in robes of satin who are coming here directly would certainly be, if in the place of these luxurious seats they should find nothing but litter!'"

"But your revery hasn't common sense in it," said the Marchioness, laughing.

"That's true," rejoined the Duke. "Those were the thoughts of a man slightly intoxicated."

"What do you say, my son?"

"Nothing very improper, dear mother. I came home hungry, weak, bruised, already intoxicated with the open air. You know that water does not agree with me. I cannot slake my thirst, and in making the attempt I got fuddled,--that 's all. You know too that it lasts me but a quarter of an hour at most, and that I have sense enough to keep myself quiet the necessary time. That is why, instead of coming to kiss your hand during your dessert, I slipped into the drawing-room, there to recover my senses."

"Come, come," said the Marchioness, "slip over this confusion of your senses, and let us have the point of your story."

"But that's just what I am coming to," rejoined the Duke, "as you shall see."

As he took up again the thread of his discourse with more or less difficulty, Caroline could see that the Duke was in exactly the same state of mind as that of which he was telling, and that his mother's heady wines had probably for some moments been responsible for his prolixity. Very soon, however, he overcame the slight disorder of his ideas, and continued with a grace which was really perfect.

"I was a little absent-minded, I will confess, but not at all besotted. On the contrary, I had poetical visions. From the litter scattered on the floor by my imagination, I saw a thousand odd figures arise. They were all women, some attired as for an old-fashioned court ball, others as for a Flemish peasant festival; the former embarrassed by contact of their crinoline and laces with the fresh straw, which impeded their steps and wounded their feet; the latter in short dresses, shod in great wooden shoes, which tramped lustily over the litter, while their wearers laughed till their mouths were opened wellnigh from ear to ear, at the odd appearance of the others.

"With regard to this side of the picture, it was, as the canvases of Rubens have been called, the festival of flesh. Large hands, red cheeks, powerful shoulders, very prominent noses upon blooming faces, still with admirable eyes, and a sort of cappadine attraction like your sofas and easy-chairs, which had undergone this magic transformation. I cannot otherwise explain to myself the point of departure of my hallucination.

"These splendid, great strapping women abandoned themselves entirely to a light-hearted joy; jumped up a foot in the air and came down again, to make the pendants of the candelabra vibrate, some of them rolling upon the straw, and getting up again with empty wheat-ears tangled in their hair of reddened gold. Opposite these the princesses of the fan attempted a stately dance without being able to accomplish it. The straws arrayed themselves against their furbelows, the heat of the atmosphere caused the paint to fall off, the powder trickled down upon their shoulders, and left the meagreness of their visages confessed; a mortal anguish was depicted in their expressive eyes. Evidently they feared the shining of the sun upon their counterfeit charms, and saw with fury the reality of life ready to triumph over them."

"Well, well, my son," said the Marchioness, "where are you wandering, and what signifies all this? Have you undertaken the panegyric of viragos?"

"I have undertaken nothing at all," replied the Duke; "I relate; I am inventing nothing. I was under the empire of that vision, and I have no idea into what reflections it would have led me, if I had not heard a woman singing close by me--"

Gaëtan sang very pleasantly the rustic words of which he had faithfully retained the air, and Caroline began to laugh, remembering that she had sung that refrain of her province before perceiving the Duke in the drawing-room.

The Duke continued: "Then I arose, and my vision was completely dissipated. There was no more straw upon the floor; the plump chairs and sofas with wooden legs were no longer girls in wooden shoes from the poultry yard; the slender candelabra, with their bulging ornaments, were no longer thin women in hoop-petticoats. I was quite alone in the lighted apartment, and had completely come to my senses; but I heard the singing of a village air in a style altogether rustic and true and charming, with a freshness of voice, too, of which mine certainly can give you no idea. 'What!' cried I to myself, 'a peasant, a peasant girl in the drawing-room of my mother!' I kept still, hardly breathing, and the peasant girl appeared. She passed before me twice without seeing me, walking quickly and almost touching me with her dress of pearl-gray silk."

"Ah, that," said the Marchioness,--"that then was Caroline?"

"It was somebody unknown," rejoined the Duke; "a singular peasant girl, you will agree, for she was dressed like a modest person, and of the best society. About her head she wore nothing but the glory of her own yellow hair, and she showed neither her arms nor her shoulders; but I saw her neck of snow, and her nice little hand, and feet too, for she did not have on wooden shoes."

Caroline, a little annoyed at the description of her person by this veteran Lovelace, looked toward the Marquis as if in protest. She was surprised to find a certain anxiety expressed in his face, and he avoided her look with a slight contraction of his brows.

The Duke, from whom nothing escaped, proceeded: "This adorable apparition struck me all the more that it recalled to my eyes the two types of my dispelled vision; that is, she preserved all that made the merit of the one or the other: nobleness of bearing and freshness of manners, delicacy of features, and the glow of health. She was a queen and a shepherdess in the same person."

"That is a picture which does not flatter," said the Marchioness, "but which, exposed face to face with its original, lacks perhaps a lightness of touch. Ah, my son, may you not again be a little--over-excited?"

"You ordered me to speak," rejoined the Duke. "If I speak too much, make me keep still."

"No," was the quick remark of Caroline, who observed a queer, half-suspicious look upon the face of the Marquis, and who was anxious that nothing vague should be left about her first interview with the Duke. "I do not recognize the original of the picture, and I wait for his Grace the Duke to make her speak a little."

"I have a good memory and I shall invent nothing," rejoined he. "Carried away by a sudden, irresistible sympathy, I spoke to this young lady from the country. Her voice, her look, her neat, frank replies, her air of goodness, of real innocence,--the innocence of the heart,--won me to such a degree that I told her of my esteem and respect at the end of five minutes as if I had known her all my life, and I felt myself jealous of her esteem as if she had been my own sister. Is that the truth this time, Mlle de Saint-Geneix?"

"I know nothing of your private sentiments, your Grace," replied Caroline; "but you seemed to me so affable that it never crossed my mind you could be tender in your cups, and that I was very grateful for your kindness. I see now that I must put a lower estimate upon it, and that there was a trifle of irony in the whole."

"And in what do you see that, if you please?"

"In the exaggerated praise with which you seem to try to excite my vanity; but I protest against it, your Grace, and perhaps it would have been more generous in you not to have commenced the attack upon a person so inoffensive and of so humble a quality as I am."

"Come now," said the Duke, turning toward his brother, who appeared to be thinking upon an entirely different subject, and who, nevertheless, heard everything, as if in his own despite; "she persists in suspecting me and in regarding my respect as an injury. Come now, Marquis, you have been telling her naughty things of me?"

"That is not a habit of mine," answered the Marquis, with the gentleness of truth.

"Well, then," continued the Duke, "I know who has ruined me in the opinion of Mlle de Saint-Geneix. It is an old lady whose gray hairs are turning to a slaty blue, and whose hands are so thin that her rings have to be hunted up in the sweepings every morning. She talked about me to Mlle de Saint-Geneix for a quarter of an hour the other evening, and when I sought again the kindly look which had made my heart young, I did not find it, and I do not find it now. You see. Marquis, there is no other way. Ah! but why are you so silent? You commenced my eulogy, and Mlle de Saint-Geneix seems to have confidence in you. If you would just commence again."

"My children," said the Marchioness, "you can resume the discussion another time. I have to dress, and I want to say something to you before any one comes to interrupt us. The clock is perhaps a few minutes slow."

"I think, indeed, that it is very slow," observed Caroline, rising; and, leaving the Duke and the Marquis to help their mother to her apartment, the young lady went quickly to the drawing-room. She expected to find visitors there, for the dinner had been prolonged a little more than usual; but no one had yet arrived, and, instead of tripping lightly about, singing as she went, she seated herself thoughtfully by the fire.

VI

Caroline in her own despite commenced to find something galling in her situation. She had endeavored not to think at all about the species of domestic service which she had heroically accepted. No one, indeed, could have been less fitted for this complete surrender of the will. She felt shocked by the obstinate or affected attention paid her by the Duke d'Aléria, and she considered herself constrained to hide her impatience and disdain. "In my sister's house," she said to herself, "I should not be obliged to endure the compliments of this person. I should put an end to them with a single word. He would think me a prude, but that would make no difference. He would be sent off, and all would be said. Here I must be sprightly and polite, like a lady of society, look upon the light side of everything, see nothing offensive in the gallantry of a libertine. I must guess the science of the women who are broken in to this kind of life. If I am as brusk with him as my frankness would lead me to be, the Duke would get a spite at me; he would calumniate me to revenge himself, and perhaps to have me sent away. Sent away! Yes, in my position, one is liable to be surprised by any vile plot, and dismissed without more ceremony than is observed with the humblest servant. These are the dangers and the insults to which I am exposed. I did wrong to come here. Madame d'Arglade never told me about this Duke, and I have been believing in an impossibility."

Caroline was not of an irresolute spirit. From the moment that the thought of going away had occurred to her, she began to cast about in her mind for some other way of supporting her sister. She had received an advance from the Marchioness, and it was necessary to find elsewhere another advance by which to return it, if the conduct of the Duke should not permit of her remaining with his mother till the time paid for by the little sum sent to Camille had been duly served. Thus Caroline came to think of the few hundreds of francs offered her by her nurse, whose letter received that morning was yet in her pocket. She now read that artless and motherly letter again, and, thinking how great a benefaction can go with the unpretending charity of the poor, she felt herself once more deeply touched and she wept.

The Marquis entered and found her wiping her eyes. She folded up the letter again and put it unaffectedly back in her pocket, without attempting to conceal her emotion under an assumption of cheerfulness. Nevertheless she remarked a shade of irony upon M. de Villemer's face, which usually was so kind. She looked at him as if asking whom he wanted to ridicule, and he, becoming slightly embarrassed, hesitated for words, and ended by saying quite simply, "You were weeping?"

"Yes," she replied, "but not from sorrow."

"You have received good news?"

"No, a proof of friendship."

"You ought to receive such things frequently."

"There are testimonies more or less sincere."

"You seem to be in a doubting mood to-day; you are not every day so mistrustful."

"No, not every day; I am not naturally distrustful. Are you, M. de Villemer?"

Urbain was always a little startled when questioned directly about himself. It cost him an effort to interrogate others, and to be questioned in return caused him a species of trouble.

"I," he answered, after a moment's hesitation,--"I do not know. I should be very much at a loss how to tell you what I am--at this moment especially."

"Yes, you appear to be preoccupied," rejoined Caroline; "do not make an effort to speak to me, M. de Villemer."

"Pardon me, I want--I would like to speak with you; but it is a very delicate matter. I do not know how to begin."

"Ah! indeed? You disquiet me a little. And yet it seems to me that it will be well for me to know what you are thinking about just now."

"Well--yes, you are right. Quick, then, for we may be interrupted at any moment. I shall not have to say much, I hope, to make you understand me. I love my brother; to-day especially I love him tenderly. I am certain of his sincerity; but his imagination is very lively,--you have just had evidence of that. In short, if he has been a little too persistent in his endeavor to change the unfavorable impression of him which perhaps you may not have at all, and which, in any case, he does not merit but to a certain degree, I would like to have you promise to speak of it to my mother and to my mother only. Do not think it strange or impertinent in me to volunteer my advice. I have such a desire to see my mother happy, and I see so clearly that you already contribute largely to her happiness, the society of an intelligent and worthy person is so necessary to her, and it would probably be so impossible for her to replace you, that I would, knowing you to be happy and satisfied in your position, like to believe that you will always be with her. And now you know the only thing upon which I have been preoccupied."

"I thank you for this explanation, M. de Villemer," replied Caroline, "and I will confess I expected that your integrity would some day consent to give it."

"My integrity? But my whole explanation consists in this: my brother is light-hearted, amiable, and if his gayety has become painful to you, my mother, able to restrain him and possessing in that respect an ascendency over him which I cannot have, would on the one hand know how to reassure you, and how on the other, to keep my brother's vivacity of speech within proper bounds."

"Yes, yes, we understand each other," rejoined Caroline; "but we are not quite of the same opinion as to the means of curing the--the amiable sportiveness of his Grace, the Duke. You think that Madame the Marchioness will be able to preserve me from it; and I believe that between an adored son and a tender mother no one can or ought to carry complaints. Before certain judges we are never right. I have been thinking exactly of this situation, and I foresaw with real sorrow that a moment might come when I should be compelled--"

"To go away from us, to leave my mother?" asked the Marquis, with a sudden eagerness, which he repressed immediately. "That was exactly what I feared. If that idea has already entered your mind, I am very much distressed; but I do not believe it is well founded. Be careful not to be unjust. My brother was very much excited today. A particular circumstance, a family matter having much to do with the feelings, had almost overcome him this morning. This evening he was happy, merry, and therefore impulsive. When you know him better--"

The bell was heard to ring. The Marquis started. Friends arrived. He was compelled to leave in suspense many things which he would have liked to say and not to say. He hastened to add, "Now, in the name of Heaven, in the name of my mother, do not be in a hurry to take a step which would be so sad, so grievous to her. If I dared, if I had the right, I would pray you to decide nothing without consulting me--"

"The respect to which your character gives you the right," replied Caroline, "gives you also the right to counsel me, and I do not hesitate to promise you what you have been kind enough to ask."

The Marquis had no time to express his gratitude. They were no longer alone in the drawing-room; but there was an extraordinary eloquence in his look, and Caroline found again in it the confidence and affection which had appeared under a cloud at the commencement of their interview. The eyes of the Marquis had that remarkable beauty which can spring only from an ardent soul joined to great purity of thought. They were the only expression of his inner nature which his timidity did not succeed in paralyzing. Caroline understood him now, and nothing confused, nothing troubled her in the language of those clear eyes which she questioned frequently as the keepers of her conscience and the guides of her conduct.

Caroline really had a veneration for this man, whose character every one appreciated, but whose intelligence and delicacy every one did not fathom or divine. In spite, however, of the satisfaction in which their conversation had just ended, she sought in going over it again to herself to understand it in all its bearings. She thought quickly, and, while going about the drawing-room to do the honors,--within the limits of the favor and reserve which had been imposed upon her, and whose exact lines she had easily observed from the first,--she demanded of herself why the Marquis had seemed to waver among two or three successive ideas in speaking to her. At first he had appeared disposed to reproach her for believing in the flatteries of the Duke, then he had given her a friendly warning against the continuance of these attacks, and finally, as soon as she had expressed her displeasure at them, he himself had hastened to allay it. She had never seen him irresolute, and, if his language was frequently timid, his convictions were never so. "It must be," she thought, "that in the first place he considered me imprudent, and his brother likely to take advantage of the fact; in the second place, it must be that I am really more necessary to his much-loved mother, already, than I could have believed. At all events, there is a hidden something in this which I cannot understand, and which I suppose he will explain to me hereafter. Whatever it may be, I am free. Five hundred francs will not bind me a day, an hour, in a humiliating position. I have not yet sent off my answer to Justine."

We see how far the honest, clear conscience of Mlle de Saint-Geneix was from seeking in the constrained silence of the Marquis an unbecoming sentiment or an instinct of jealousy. If the Marquis had been questioned at that moment, could he have answered with so much assurance, "With me it is only a respectful esteem and filial solicitude?"