"One day," continued she, "I may confide in you: it will perhaps be necessary."
The magistrate was blind and deaf. "I also," answered he, "have a secret, which I wish to confide to you in return."
When he retired towards midnight, he said to himself, "To-morrow I will confess everything to her." Then pa.s.sed a little more than fifty days, during which he kept repeating to himself,--"To-morrow!"
It happened at last one evening in the month of August; the heat all day had been overpowering; towards dusk a breeze had risen, the leaves rustled; there were signs of a storm in the atmosphere.
They were seated together at the bottom of the garden, under the arbour, adorned with exotic plants, and, through the branches, they perceived the fluttering gown of the marchioness, who was taking a turn after her dinner. They had remained a long time without speaking, enjoying the perfume of the flowers, the calm beauty of the evening.
M. Daburon ventured to take the young girl"s hand. It was the first time, and the touch of her fine skin thrilled through every fibre of his frame, and drove the blood surging to his brain.
"Mademoiselle," stammered he, "Claire--"
She turned towards him her beautiful eyes, filled with astonishment.
"Forgive me," continued he, "forgive me. I have spoken to your grandmother, before daring to raise my eyes to you. Do you not understand me? A word from your lips will decide my future happiness or misery. Claire, mademoiselle, do not spurn me: I love you!"
While the magistrate was speaking, Mademoiselle d"Arlange looked at him as though doubtful of the evidence of her senses; but at the words, "I love you!" p.r.o.nounced with the trembling accents of the most devoted pa.s.sion, she disengaged her hand sharply, and uttered a stifled cry.
"You," murmured she, "is this really you?"
M. Daburon, at this the most critical moment of his life was powerless to utter a word. The presentiment of an immense misfortune oppressed his heart. What were then his feelings, when he saw Claire burst into tears.
She hid her face in her hands, and kept repeating,--
"I am very unhappy, very unhappy!"
"You unhappy?" exclaimed the magistrate at length, "and through me?
Claire, you are cruel! In heaven"s name, what have I done? What is the matter? Speak! Anything rather then this anxiety which is killing me."
He knelt before her on the gravelled walk, and again made an attempt to take her hand. She repulsed him with an imploring gesture.
"Let me weep," said she: "I suffer so much, you are going to hate me, I feel it. Who knows! you will, perhaps, despise me, and yet I swear before heaven that I never expected what you have just said to me, that I had not even a suspicion of it!"
M. Daburon remained upon his knees, awaiting his doom.
"Yes," continued Claire, "you will think you have been the victim of a detestable coquetry. I see it now! I comprehend everything! It is not possible, that, without a profound love, a man can be all that you have been to me. Alas! I was but a child. I gave myself up to the great happiness of having a friend! Am I not alone in the world, and as if lost in a desert? Silly and imprudent, I thoughtlessly confided in you, as in the best, the most indulgent of fathers."
These words revealed to the unfortunate magistrate the extent of his error. The same as a heavy hammer, they smashed into a thousand fragments the fragile edifice of his hopes. He raised himself slowly, and, in a tone of involuntary reproach, he repeated,--"Your father!"
Mademoiselle d"Arlange felt how deeply she had wounded this man whose intense love she dare not even fathom. "Yes," she resumed, "I love you as a father! Seeing you, usually so grave and austere, become for me so good, so indulgent, I thanked heaven for sending me a protector to replace those who are dead."
M. Daburon could not restrain a sob; his heart was breaking.
"One word," continued Claire,--"one single word, would have enlightened me. Why did you not p.r.o.nounce it! It was with such happiness that I leant on you as a child on its mother; and with what inward joy I said to myself, "I am sure of one friend, of one heart into which runs the overflow of mine!" Ah! why was not my confidence greater? Why did I withhold my secret from you? I might have avoided this fearful calamity.
I ought to have told you long since. I no longer belong to myself freely and with happiness, I have given my life to another."
To hover in the clouds, and suddenly to fall rudely to the earth, such was M. Daburon"s fate; his sufferings are not to be described.
"Far better to have spoken," answered he; "yet no. I owe to your silence, Claire, six months of delicious illusions, six months of enchanting dreams. This shall be my share of life"s happiness."
The last beams of closing day still enabled the magistrate to see Mademoiselle d"Arlange. Her beautiful face had the whiteness and the immobility of marble. Heavy tears rolled silently down her cheeks. It seemed to M. Daburon that he was beholding the frightful spectacle of a weeping statue.
"You love another," said he at length, "another! And your grandmother does not know it. Claire, you can only have chosen a man worthy of your love. How is it the marchioness does not receive him?"
"There are certain obstacles," murmured Claire, "obstacles which perhaps we may never be able to remove; but a girl like me can love but once.
She marries him she loves, or she belongs to heaven!"
"Certain obstacles!" said M. Daburon in a hollow voice. "You love a man, he knows it, and he is stopped by obstacles?"
"I am poor," answered Mademoiselle d"Arlange, "and his family is immensely rich. His father is cruel, inexorable."
"His father," cried the magistrate, with a bitterness he did not dream of hiding, "his father, his family, and that withholds him! You are poor, he is rich, and that stops him! And yet he knows you love him!
Ah! why am I not in his place? and why have I not the entire universe against me? What sacrifice can compare with love? such as I understand it. Nay, would it be a sacrifice? That which appears most so, is it not really an immense joy? To suffer, to struggle, to wait, to hope always, to devote oneself entirely to another; that is my idea of love."
"It is thus I love," said Claire with simplicity.
This answer crushed the magistrate. He could understand it. He knew that for him there was no hope; but he felt a terrible enjoyment in torturing himself, and proving his misfortune by intense suffering.
"But," insisted he, "how have you known him, spoken to him? Where? When?
Madame d"Arlange receives no one."
"I ought now to tell you everything, sir," answered Claire proudly.
"I have known him for a long time. It was at the house of one of my grandmother"s friends, who is a cousin of his,--old Mademoiselle Goello, that I saw him for the first time. There we spoke to each other; there we meet each other now."
"Ah!" exclaimed M. Daburon, whose eyes were suddenly opened, "I remember now. A few days before your visit to Mademoiselle Goello, you are gayer than usual; and, when you return, you are often sad."
"That is because I see how much he is pained by the obstacles he cannot overcome."
"Is his family, then, so ill.u.s.trious," asked the magistrate harshly, "that it disdains alliance with yours?"
"I should have told you everything, without waiting to be questioned, sir," answered Mademoiselle d"Arlange, "even his name. He is called Albert de Commarin."
The marchioness at this moment, thinking she had walked enough, was preparing to return to her rose-coloured boudoir. She therefore approached the arbour, and exclaimed in her loud voice:--
"Worthy magistrate, piquet awaits you."
Mechanically the magistrate arose, stammering, "I am coming."
Claire held him back. "I have not asked you to keep my secret, sir,"
said she.
"O mademoiselle!" said M. Daburon, wounded by this appearance of doubt.
"I know," resumed Claire, "that I can count upon you; but, come what will, my tranquillity is gone."
M. Daburon looked at her with an air of surprise; his eyes questioned her.
"It is certain," continued she, "that what I, a young and inexperienced girl, have failed to see, has not pa.s.sed unnoticed by my grandmother.