"Am I to understand," said Rameau, coldly, for his amour propre was resentful, "that the proposals of another have been more fortunate than mine?" And he named the youngest and comeliest of those whom she had rejected. "Certainly not," said Isaura.
Rameau rose and went to the window, turning his face from her. In reality he was striving to collect his thoughts and decide on the course it were most prudent for him now to pursue. The fumes of the absinthe which had, despite his previous forebodings, emboldened him to hazard his avowal, had now subsided into the languid reaction which is generally consequent on that treacherous stimulus, a reaction not unfavourable to pa.s.sionless reflection. He knew that if he said he could not conquer his love, he would still cling to hope, and trust to perseverance and time, he should compel Isaura to forbid his visits and break off their familiar intercourse. This would be fatal to the chance of yet winning her, and would also be of serious disadvantage to his more worldly interests. Her literary aid might become essential to the journal on which his fortunes depended; and at all events, in her conversation, in her encouragement, in her sympathy with the pains and joys of his career, he felt a support, a comfort, nay, an inspiration.
For the spontaneous gush of her fresh thoughts and fancies served to recruit his own jaded ideas, and enlarge his own stinted range of invention. No, he could not commit himself to the risk of banishment from Isaura.
And mingled with meaner motives for discretion, there was one of which he was but vaguely conscious, purer and n.o.bler. In the society of this girl, in whom whatever was strong and high in mental organisation became so sweetened into feminine grace by gentleness of temper and kindliness of disposition, Rameau felt himself a better man. The virgin-like dignity with which she moved, so untainted by a breath of scandal, amid salons in which the envy of virtues doubted sought to bring innocence itself into doubt, warmed into a genuine reverence the cynicism of his professed creed.
While with her, while under her chastening influence, he was sensible of a poetry infused within him far more true to the Camoenae than all he had elaborated into verse. In these moments he was ashamed of the vices he had courted as distractions. He imagined that with her all his own, it would be easy to reform.
No; to withdraw wholly from Isaura was to renounce his sole chance of redemption.
While these thoughts, which it takes so long to detail, pa.s.sed rapidly through his brain, he felt a soft touch on his arm, and, turning his face slowly, encountered the tender, compa.s.sionate eyes of Isaura.
"Be consoled, dear friend," she said, with a smile, half cheering, half mournful. "Perhaps for all true artists the solitary lot is the best."
"I will try to think so," answered Rameau; "and meanwhile I thank you with a full heart for the sweetness with which you have checked my presumption--the presumption shall not be repeated. Gratefully I accept the friendship you deign to tender me. You bid me forget the words I uttered. Promise in turn that you will forget them--or at least consider them withdrawn. You will receive me still as friend?"
"As friend, surely: yes. Do we not both need friends?" She held out her hand as she spoke; he bent over it, kissed it with respect, and the interview thus closed.
CHAPTER V.
It was late in the evening that day when a man who had the appearance of a decent bourgeois, in the lower grades of that comprehensive cla.s.s, entered one of the streets in the Faubourg Montmartre, tenanted chiefly by artisans. He paused at the open doorway of a tall narrow house, and drew back as he heard footsteps descending a very gloomy staircase.
The light from a gas lamp on the street fell full on the face of the person thus quitting the house--the face of a young and handsome man, dressed with the quiet elegance which betokened one of higher rank or fashion than that neighbourhood was habituated to find among its visitors. The first comer retreated promptly into the shade, and, as by sudden impulse, drew his hat low down over his eyes.
The other man did not, however, observe him, went his way with a quick step along the street, and entered another house some yards distant.
"What can that pious Bourbonite do here?" muttered the first comer. "Can he be a conspirator? Diable! "tis as dark as Erebus on that staircase."
Taking cautious hold of the banister, the man now ascended the stairs.
On the landing of the first floor there was a gas lamp which threw upward a faint ray that finally died at the third story. But at that third story the man"s journey ended; he pulled a bell at the door to the right, and in another moment or so the door was opened by a young woman of twenty-eight or thirty, dressed very simply, but with a certain neatness not often seen in the wives of artisans in the Faubourg Montmartre. Her face, which, though pale and delicate, retained much of the beauty of youth, became clouded as she recognised the visitor; evidently the visit was not welcome to her.
"Monsieur Lebeau again!" she exclaimed, shrinking back.
"At your service, chere dame. The goodman is of course at home? Ah, I catch sight of him," and sliding by the woman, M. Lebeau pa.s.sed the narrow lobby in which she stood, through the open door conducting into the room in which Armand Monnier was seated, his chin propped on his hand, his elbow resting on a table, looking abstractedly into s.p.a.ce. In a corner of the room two small children were playing languidly with a set of bone tablets, inscribed with the letters of the alphabet. But whatever the children were doing with the alphabet, they were certainly not learning to read from it.
The room was of fair size and height, and by no means barely or shabbily furnished. There was a pretty clock on the mantelpiece. On the wall were hung designs for the decoration of apartments, and shelves on which were ranged a few books.
The window was open, and on the sill were placed flowerpots; you could scent the odour they wafted into the room. Altogether it was an apartment suited to a skilled artisan earning high wages. From the room we are now in, branched on one side a small but commodious kitchen; on the other side, on which the door was screened by a portiere, with a border prettily worked by female hands--some years ago, for it was faded now--was a bedroom, communicating with one of less size in which the children slept. We do not enter those additional rooms, but it may be well here to mention them as indications of the comfortable state of an intelligent skilled artisan of Paris, who thinks he can better that state by some revolution which may ruin his employer.
Monnier started up at the entrance of Lebeau, and his face showed that he did not share the dislike to the visit which that of the female partner of his life had evinced. On the contrary, his smile was cordial, and there was a hearty ring in the voice which cried out--
"I am glad to see you--something to do? Eh!"
"Always ready to work for liberty, mon brave."
"I hope so: what"s in the wind now?"
"O Armand, be prudent--be prudent!" cried the woman, piteously. "Do not lead him into further mischief, Monsieur Lebeau;" as she faltered forth the last words, she bowed her head over the two little ones, and her voice died in sobs.
"Monnier," said Lebeau, gravely, "Madame is right. I ought not to lead you into further mischief; there are three in the room who have better claims on you than--"
"The cause of millions," interrupted Monnier.
"No."
He approached the woman and took up one of the children very tenderly, stroking back its curls and kissing the face, which, if before surprised and saddened by the mother"s sob, now smiled gaily under the father"s kiss.
"Canst thou doubt, my Heloise," said the artisan, mildly, "that whatever I do thou and these are not uppermost in my thoughts? I act for thine interest and theirs--the world as it exists is the foe of you three. The world I would replace it by will be more friendly."
The poor woman made no reply, but as he drew her towards him, she leant her head upon his breast and wept quietly. Monnier led her thus from the room, whispering words of soothing. The children followed the parents into the adjoining chamber. In a few minutes Monnier returned, shutting the door behind him, and drawing the portiere close.
"You will excuse me, Citizen, and my poor wife--wife she is to me and to all who visit here, though the law says she is not."
"I respect Madame the more for her dislike to myself," said Lebeau, with a somewhat melancholy smile.
"Not dislike to you personally, Citizen, but dislike to the business which she connects with your visits, and she is more than usually agitated on that subject this evening, because, just before you came, another visitor had produced a great effect on her feelings--poor dear Heloise!"
"Indeed! how?"
"Well, I was employed in the winter in redecorating the salon, and boudoir, of Madame de Vandemar; her son, M. Raoul, took great interest in superintending the details. He would sometimes talk to me very civilly, not only on my work, but on other matters. It seems that Madame now wants something done to the salle-a-manger, and asked old Gerard--my late master, you know--to send me. Of course he said that was impossible--for, though I was satisfied with my own wages, I had induced his other men to strike, and was one of the ringleaders in the recent strike of artisans in general--a dangerous man, and he would have nothing more to do with me. So M. Raoul came to see and talk to me--scarce gone before you rang at the bell--you might have almost met him on the stairs."
"I saw a beau monsieur come out of the house. And so his talk has affected Madame."
"Very much; it was quite brother-like. He is one of the religious set, and they always get at the weak side of the soft s.e.x."
"Ay," said Lebeau, thoughtfully; "if religion were banished from the laws of men, it would still find a refuge in the hearts of women. But Raoul de Vandemar did not presume to preach to Madame upon the sin of loving you and your children?"
"I should like to have heard him preach to her," cried Monnier, fiercely. "No, he only tried to reason with me about matters he could not understand."
"Strikes?"
"Well, not exactly strikes--he did not contend that we workmen had not full right to combine and to strike for obtaining fairer money"s worth for our work; but he tried to persuade me that where, as in my case, it was not a matter of wages, but of political principle--of war against capitalists--I could but injure myself and mislead others. He wanted to reconcile me to old Gerard, or to let him find me employment elsewhere; and when I told him that my honour forbade me to make terms for myself till those with whom I was joined were satisfied, he said, "But if this lasts much longer, your children will not look so rosy;" then poor Heloise began to wring her hands and cry, and he took me aside and wanted to press money on me--as a loan. He spoke so kindly that I could not be angry; but when he found I would take nothing, he asked me about some families in the street of whom he had a list, and who, he was informed, were in great distress. That is true; I am feeding some of them myself out of my savings. You see, this young Monsieur belongs to a society of men, many as young as he is, which visits the poor and dispenses charity. I did not feel I had a right to refuse aid for others, and I told him where his money would be best spent. I suppose he went there when he left me."
"I know the society you mean, that of St. Francois de Sales. It comprises some of the most ancient of that old n.o.blesse to which the ouvriers in the great Revolution were so remorseless."
"We ouvriers are wiser now; we see that in a.s.sailing them, we gave ourselves worse tyrants in the new aristocracy of the capitalists. Our quarrel now is that of artisans against employers."
"Of course, I am aware of that; but to leave general politics, tell me frankly, How has the strike affected you as yet? I mean in purse? Can you stand its pressure? If not, you are above the false pride of not taking help from me, a fellow-conspirator, though you were justified in refusing it when offered by Raoul de Vandemar, the servant of the Church."
"Pardon, I refuse aid from any one, except for the common cause. But do not fear for me, I am not pinched as yet. I have had high wages for some years, and since I and Heloise came together, I have not wasted a sous out of doors, except in the way of public duty, such as making converts at the Jean Jacques and elsewhere; a gla.s.s of beer and a pipe don"t cost much. And Heloise is such a house-wife, so thrifty, scolds me if I buy her a ribbon, poor love! No wonder that I would pull down a society that dares to scoff at her--dares to say she is not my wife, and her children are base born. No, I have some savings left yet. War to society, war to the knife!"
"Monnier," said Lebeau, in a voice that evinced emotion, "listen to me: I have received injuries from society which, when they were fresh, half-maddened me--that is twenty years ago. I would then have thrown myself into any plot against society that proffered revenge; but society, my friend, is a wall of very strong masonry, as it now stands; it may be sapped in the course of a thousand years, but stormed in a day--no. You dash your head against it--you scatter your brains, and you dislodge a stone. Society smiles in scorn, effaces the stain, and replaces the stone. I no longer war against society. I do war against a system in that society which is hostile to me--systems in France are easily overthrown. I say this because I want to use you, and I do not want to deceive."
"Deceive me, bah! You are an honest man," cried Monnier; and he seized Lebeau"s hand, and shook it with warmth and vigour.