Chapter 11

'TWIXT LOVE AND DUTY.

One evening--it was the first week in June, about nine months after Frank's adventure in the garden--Adele Rougeant was tending her flowers.

She had been sewing for a time, and now, feeling a want of relaxation, she went to her parterre. Her violin and her flowers were her only companions. No wonder she fled to them when inclined to be sorrowful.

How beautiful the flower-bed looked in the twilight! The weather had been very warm, the earth which had been previously battered down by heavy rains was now covered with small cracks, little mouths as it were, begging for water.

Adele supplied them plentifully with the precious liquid.

Then she armed herself with a pair of gardening gloves, and an old mason's trowel (any instrument is good to a woman), and began to plant a row of lobelias all around her pelargoniums.

This done, she looked at her work. There is a pleasure in gazing upon well-trimmed borders, but this pleasure is increased tenfold when one thinks that the plants have been arranged by one's own hands.

The young lady felt this delight: she felt more, she experienced the soothing influence of nature's sweet converse. She looked at the primroses, whose slender stalks were bent and which touched each other as if engaged in silent intercourse. And thus they would die, she thought, locked in each others fond embrace, their task accomplished, their life but one stretch of mutual love.

"Ah love! What is love?" she said to herself. But immediately a score of answers came; a dozen vague definitions presented themselves. "Certainly," she mused, "the parents who toil for their children without thinking of reward; love." Then another self within her answered: "It is their duty." "Their duty, yes, but they are not often actuated by a sense of duty; I think it is love."

Then she thought about another kind of love--the love she felt for Frank Mathers. She asked herself why she loved him. He was not bold, and she admired boldness. That she loved him, however, she was certain. Did he love her? "Yes," she thought he did. Then what kept them apart? Who was the cause of it? Her father. "What a pity I have such a father," she sighed; "not content with making himself miserable, he makes me pass a life of anxiety."

At this stage of her soliloquy, she perceived a young man, whom she quickly recognized as Tom, her cousin from the "Prenoms." He came walking towards the house.

As he opened the little gate he smiled broadly. His smile was not a pleasant one, because it was undefined. "Good-evening, Adele," he said when he came near to her. "How are you?"

"Quite well thank you," she said, "and how are you?"

"Well enough, thanks," he returned, a little cooled down, for she did not take the preferred hand which he was tending towards her.

"Are you afraid to shake hands with me?" he asked, half smiling, half vexed.

"My gloves are soiled," replied she, taking off her right hand glove; afterwards shaking hands with him.

"Oh, I see," he said, quite satisfied with the excuse.

In reality, Adele had not seen the preferred hand; she was busy with her thoughts just then. His manner seemed repulsive to her; she knew not why. She opened the front door and showed him into the parlour. Her father was there, evidently expecting Tom, for he received him with a warmth which he had not shown for a long time. She left them to themselves and was proceeding towards her parterre when her father called out to her.

"What! are you going, Adele, when Mr. Soher is here; come and keep us company."

The girl retraced her steps. What could her father mean? He had not told her a word about her cousin's visit, and yet, it was evident he was expecting him.

"Where's your violin?" questioned her father.

Adele fetched the desired instrument. She felt very much like an instrument herself. "Father takes me for a toy," she thought, and then as she looked at the two men engaged in close conversation, a sudden light beamed upon her--he was going to force her into a _marriage de raison_, as the French call it. Everything had been arranged beforehand.

It was all conjecture on her part, but she felt it to be the truth. The more she thought over it, the more she felt convinced of the fact.

"Oh, it's disgusting," she thought; and a sickening sensation crept over her.

"Will you give us a tune?" said Mr. Rougeant.

"Do;" entreated Tom.

Adele took the violin from the table upon which she had placed it, passed the bow over the strings to ascertain if it was properly tuned, then slowly began playing.

It was a simple piece, which did not demand exertion. She did not care what to play. "They cannot distinguish 'Home, Sweet Home' from 'Auld Lang Syne,'" she thought. Besides, they were not half listening; why should she give them good music.

She felt like the painter, who, having completed a real work of art, refuses to exhibit it to the public, on the ground that it is a profane thing to exhibit it to the gaze of unartistic eyes.

When she had finished playing, Tom looked at her. "That's capital music," he said, assuming the air of a connoisseur, then he added: "I s'pose you practice a good bit."

"The grin," thought Adele, "it's awful; and his eyes resemble those of a wild cat. I wonder if he has a soul; if it shines through those eyes, it cannot be spotless;" then, recollecting herself, she said: "I have been practising now for ten years."

"No wonder you can rattle it," was the rejoinder.

Now Tom was not half so ugly as Adele imagined him to be. Indeed, he looked well enough this evening, for he had come on purpose to exhibit himself, and was as a matter of fact as well dressed up as he could. His manners were not refined, but they were not absolutely rude.

But the girl, whose whole being revolted against this scheme of her father's fabrication, felt naturally indignant and could not help exaggerating his faults.

She felt greatly relieved when her father told her to prepare the supper.

It may here be noted that Mr. Rougeant had now altogether dispensed with his Breton servant. Now that Adele was growing up, a servant was altogether superfluous, he said. The truth was that this enabled him to save a few pounds every year.

When the table was laid, the three sat down to supper. It being over, the two men returned to the parlour. Adele was a long, very long time in putting away the supper things.

Her father noticed this, and when she entered the parlour, he remarked: "You've been long enough."

"Provided she has not been too long," put in his nephew, trying to win his cousin's good will.

After one of the most miserable evenings that Adele had ever spent, Tom took leave of the family.

When he was fairly out of the way, Adele ventured to ask her father what he had come for.

"He came to see us," he replied, then, after a pause, he added abruptly: "Have you ever thought of marrying?"

"I, marry! you forget that I am but a child."

"A child! why, you will soon be of age."

There was a deep silence for a time, then the father spoke: "Mr. Soher (emphasizing the Mr.) is a nice young man. He means to ask your hand when he is better acquainted with you."

"He drinks."

"Not now, I know he used to do so, but he is quite steady now--I knew you would object, I saw it in your manner, the way in which you answered him; somehow or other, you don't seem to take to respectable people. But mind you; if ever you marry anyone else, not a penny of mine shall you have; not one double."

"He is my _cousin-germain_."

"Well, what does it matter? the law does not prevent you from marrying your _cousin-germain_." His tone became bitter. He went on: "I made a great mistake when I promised your mother on her death-bed that I would send you to a boarding-school. What other objection have you to state?"

His daughter looked down, coloured and replied almost inaudibly: "I do not love him."

"Bah! if it's only that, you will get to love him soon enough; I know you will."

Then thinking by her demeanour that he had nearly won her over, he asked: "Shall I ask him to dinner next Sunday?"

"You would only increase the contempt that I feel for him."

Mr. Rougeant was not prepared for this. "I knew it," he said in a vexed tone of voice; "this is the satisfaction you give me for having brought you up like a lady, spending a great part of my income towards your education. I tell you, you are a foolish girl, a simpleton; I won't have any of your nonsense. I will see to this later on."

They retired for the night; Mr. Rougeant enraged at his daughter's abhorrence of Tom, and Adele deeply grieved at the condition of affairs.

Alas! she knew her father well.

She felt that a terrible battle would have to be fought some day; a conflict for love and liberty.

And, raising her eyes to heaven, she prayed that she might have strength to support the fight.