VII

The speech alarmed Monsieur and Madame Fontaine. The old Vendeen had

ceased to be so indifferent to his daughter's prospects as he had

promised to be. He went to Paris to seek information, and found none.

Uneasy at this mystery, and not yet knowing what might be the outcome

of the inquiry which he had begged a Paris friend to institute with

reference to the family of Longueville, he thought it his duty to warn

his daughter to behave prudently. The fatherly admonition was received

with mock submission spiced with irony.

"At least, my dear Emilie, if you love him, do not own it to him."

"My dear father, I certainly do love him; but I will await your

permission before I tell him so."

"But remember, Emilie, you know nothing of his family or his

pursuits."

"I may be ignorant, but I am content to be. But, father, you wished to

see me married; you left me at liberty to make my choice; my choice is

irrevocably made--what more is needful?"

"It is needful to ascertain, my dear, whether the man of your choice

is the son of a peer of France," the venerable gentleman retorted

sarcastically.

Emilie was silent for a moment. She presently raised her head, looked

at her father, and said somewhat anxiously, "Are not the

Longuevilles----?"

"They became extinct in the person of the old Duc de Rostein-Limbourg,

who perished on the scaffold in 1793. He was the last representative

of the last and younger branch."

"But, papa, there are some very good families descended from bastards.

The history of France swarms with princes bearing the bar sinister on

their shields."

"Your ideas are much changed," said the old man, with a smile.

The following day was the last that the Fontaine family were to spend

at the Pavillon Planat. Emilie, greatly disturbed by her father's

warning, awaited with extreme impatience the hour at which young

Longueville was in the habit of coming, to wring some explanation from

him. She went out after dinner, and walked alone across the shrubbery

towards an arbor fit for lovers, where she knew that the eager youth

would seek her; and as she hastened thither she considered of the best

way to discover so important a matter without compromising herself--a

rather difficult thing! Hitherto no direct avowal had sanctioned the

feelings which bound her to this stranger. Like Maximilien, she had

secretly enjoyed the sweetness of first love; but both were equally

proud, and each feared to confess that love.

Maximilien Longueville, to whom Clara had communicated her not

unfounded suspicions as to Emilie's character, was by turns carried

away by the violence of a young man's passion, and held back by a wish

to know and test the woman to whom he would be entrusting his

happiness. His love had not hindered him from perceiving in Emilie the

prejudices which marred her young nature; but before attempting to

counteract them, he wished to be sure that she loved him, for he would

no sooner risk the fate of his love than of his life. He had,

therefore, persistently kept a silence to which his looks, his

behavior, and his smallest actions gave the lie.

On her side, the self-respect natural to a young girl, augmented in

Mademoiselle de Fontaine by the monstrous vanity founded on her birth

and beauty, kept her from meeting the declaration half-way, which her

growing passion sometimes urged her to invite. Thus the lovers had

instinctively understood the situation without explaining to each

other their secret motives. There are times in life when such

vagueness pleases youthful minds. Just because each had postponed

speaking too long, they seemed to be playing a cruel game of suspense.

He was trying to discover whether he was beloved, by the effort any

confession would cost his haughty mistress; she every minute hoped

that he would break a too respectful silence.

Emilie, seated on a rustic bench, was reflecting on all that had

happened in these three months full of enchantment. Her father's

suspicions were the last that could appeal to her; she even disposed

of them at once by two or three of those reflections natural to an

inexperienced girl, which, to her, seemed conclusive. Above all, she

was convinced that it was impossible that she should deceive herself.

All the summer through she had not been able to detect in Maximilien a

single gesture, or a single word, which could indicate a vulgar origin

or vulgar occupations; nay more, his manner of discussing things

revealed a man devoted to the highest interests of the nation.

"Besides," she reflected, "an office clerk, a banker, or a merchant,

would not be at leisure to spend a whole season in paying his

addresses to me in the midst of woods and fields; wasting his time as

freely as a nobleman who has life before him free of all care."

She had given herself up to meditations far more interesting to her

than these preliminary thoughts, when a slight rustling in the leaves

announced to her than Maximilien had been watching her for a minute,

not probably without admiration.

"Do you know that it is very wrong to take a young girl thus

unawares?" she asked him, smiling.

"Especially when they are busy with their secrets," replied Maximilien

archly.

"Why should I not have my secrets? You certainly have yours."

"Then you really were thinking of your secrets?" he went on, laughing.

"No, I was thinking of yours. My own, I know."

"But perhaps my secrets are yours, and yours mine," cried the young

man, softly seizing Mademoiselle de Fontaine's hand and drawing it

through his arm.

After walking a few steps they found themselves under a clump of trees

which the hues of the sinking sun wrapped in a haze of red and brown.

This touch of natural magic lent a certain solemnity to the moment.

The young man's free and eager action, and, above all, the throbbing

of his surging heart, whose hurried beating spoke to Emilie's arm,

stirred her to an emotion that was all the more disturbing because it

was produced by the simplest and most innocent circumstances. The

restraint under which the young girls of the upper class live gives

incredible force to any explosion of feeling, and to meet an

impassioned lover is one of the greatest dangers they can encounter.

Never had Emilie and Maximilien allowed their eyes to say so much that

they dared never speak. Carried a way by this intoxication, they

easily forgot the petty stipulations of pride, and the cold

hesitancies of suspicion. At first, indeed, they could only express

themselves by a pressure of hands which interpreted their happy

thoughts.

After slowing pacing a few steps in long silence, Mademoiselle de

Fontaine spoke. "Monsieur, I have a question to ask you," she said

trembling, and in an agitated voice. "But, remember, I beg, that it is

in a manner compulsory on me, from the rather singular position I am

in with regard to my family."

A pause, terrible to Emilie, followed these sentences, which she had

almost stammered out. During the minute while it lasted, the girl,

haughty as she was, dared not meet the flashing eye of the man she

loved, for she was secretly conscious of the meanness of the next

words she added: "Are you of noble birth?"

As soon as the words were spoken she wished herself at the bottom of a

lake.

"Mademoiselle," Longueville gravely replied, and his face assumed a

sort of stern dignity, "I promise to answer you truly as soon as you

shall have answered in all sincerity a question I will put to you!"--

He released her arm, and the girl suddenly felt alone in the world, as

he said: "What is your object in questioning me as to my birth?"

She stood motionless, cold, and speechless.

"Mademoiselle," Maximilien went on, "let us go no further if we do not

understand each other. I love you," he said, in a voice of deep

emotion. "Well, then," he added, as he heard the joyful exclamation

she could not suppress, "why ask me if I am of noble birth?"

"Could he speak so if he were not?" cried a voice within her, which

Emilie believed came from the depths of her heart. She gracefully

raised her head, seemed to find new life in the young man's gaze, and

held out her hand as if to renew the alliance.

"You thought I cared very much for dignities?" said she with keen

archness.

"I have no titles to offer my wife," he replied, in a half-sportive,

half-serious tone. "But if I choose one of high rank, and among women

whom a wealthy home has accustomed to the luxury and pleasures of a

fine fortune, I know what such a choice requires of me. Love gives

everything," he added lightly, "but only to lovers. Once married, they

need something more than the vault of heaven and the carpet of a

meadow."

"He is rich," she reflected. "As to titles, perhaps he only wants to

try me. He has been told that I am mad about titles, and bent on

marrying none but a peer's son. My priggish sisters have played me

that trick."--"I assure you, monsieur," she said aloud, "that I have

had very extravagant ideas about life and the world; but now," she

added pointedly, looking at him in a perfectly distracting way, "I

know where true riches are to be found for a wife."

"I must believe that you are speaking from the depths of your heart,"

he said, with gentle gravity. "But this winter, my dear Emilie, in

less than two months perhaps, I may be proud of what I shall have to

offer you if you care for the pleasures of wealth. This is the only

secret I shall keep locked here," and he laid his hand on his heart,

"for on its success my happiness depends. I dare not say ours."

"Yes, yes, ours!"

Exchanging such sweet nothings, they slowly made their way back to

rejoin the company. Mademoiselle de Fontaine had never found her lover

more amiable or wittier: his light figure, his engaging manners,

seemed to her more charming than ever, since the conversation which

had made her to some extent the possessor of a heart worthy to be the

envy of every woman. They sang an Italian duet with so much expression

that the audience applauded enthusiastically. Their adieux were in a

conventional tone, which concealed their happiness. In short, this day

had been to Emilie like a chain binding her more closely than ever to

the Stranger's fate. The strength and dignity he had displayed in the

scene when they had confessed their feelings had perhaps impressed

Mademoiselle de Fontaine with the respect without which there is no

true love.

When she was left alone in the drawing-room with her father, the old

man went up to her affectionately, held her hands, and asked her

whether she had gained any light at to Monsieur Longueville's family

and fortune.

"Yes, my dear father," she replied, "and I am happier than I could

have hoped. In short, Monsieur de Longueville is the only man I could

ever marry."

"Very well, Emilie," said the Count, "then I know what remains for me

to do."

"Do you know of any impediment?" she asked, in sincere alarm.

"My dear child, the young man is totally unknown to me; but unless he

is not a man of honor, so long as you love him, he is as dear to me as

a son."

"Not a man of honor!" exclaimed Emilie. "As to that, I am quite easy.

My uncle, who introduced him to us, will answer for him. Say, my dear

uncle, has he been a filibuster, an outlaw, a pirate?"

"I knew I should find myself in this fix!" cried the old sailor,

waking up. He looked round the room, but his niece had vanished "like

Saint-Elmo's fires," to use his favorite expression.

"Well, uncle," Monsieur de Fontaine went on, "how could you hide from

us all you knew about this young man? You must have seen how anxious

we have been. Is Monsieur de Longueville a man of family?"

"I don't know him from Adam or Eve," said the Comte de Kergarouet.

"Trusting to that crazy child's tact, I got him here by a method of my

own. I know that the boy shoots with a pistol to admiration, hunts

well, plays wonderfully at billiards, at chess, and at backgammon; he

handles the foils, and rides a horse like the late Chevalier de Saint-

Georges. He has a thorough knowledge of all our vintages. He is as

good an arithmetician as Bareme, draws, dances, and sings well. The

devil's in it! what more do you want? If that is not a perfect

gentleman, find me a bourgeois who knows all this, or any man who

lives more nobly than he does. Does he do anything, I ask you? Does he

compromise his dignity by hanging about an office, bowing down before

the upstarts you call Directors-General? He walks upright. He is a

man.--However, I have just found in my waistcoat pocket the card he

gave me when he fancied I wanted to cut his throat, poor innocent.

Young men are very simple-minded nowadays! Here it is."

"Rue du Sentier, No. 5," said Monsieur de Fontaine, trying to recall

among all the information he had received, something which might

concern the stranger. "What the devil can it mean? Messrs. Palma,

Werbrust & Co., wholesale dealers in muslins, calicoes, and printed

cotton goods, live there.--Stay, I have it: Longueville the deputy has

an interest in their house. Well, but so far as I know, Longueville

has but one son of two-and-thirty, who is not at all like our man, and

to whom he gave fifty thousand francs a year that he might marry a

minister's daughter; he wants to be made a peer like the rest of 'em.

--I never heard him mention this Maximilien. Has he a daughter? What

is this girl Clara? Besides, it is open to any adventurer to call

himself Longueville. But is not the house of Palma, Werbrust & Co.

half ruined by some speculation in Mexico or the Indies? I will clear

all this up."

"You speak a soliloquy as if you were on the stage, and seem to

account me a cipher," said the old admiral suddenly. "Don't you know

that if he is a gentleman, I have more than one bag in my hold that

will stop any leak in his fortune?"

"As to that, if he is a son of Longueville's, he will want nothing;

but," said Monsieur de Fontaine, shaking his head from side to side,

"his father has not even washed off the stains of his origin. Before

the Revolution he was an attorney, and the DE he has since assumed no

more belongs to him than half of his fortune."

"Pooh! pooh! happy those whose fathers were hanged!" cried the admiral

gaily.

Three or four days after this memorable day, on one of those fine

mornings in the month of November, which show the boulevards cleaned

by the sharp cold of an early frost, Mademoiselle de Fontaine, wrapped

in a new style of fur cape, of which she wished to set the fashion,

went out with two of her sisters-in-law, on whom she had been wont to

discharge her most cutting remarks. The three women were tempted to

the drive, less by their desire to try a very elegant carriage, and

wear gowns which were to set the fashion for the winter, than by their

wish to see a cape which a friend had observed in a handsome lace and

linen shop at the corner of the Rue de la Paix. As soon as they were

in the shop the Baronne de Fontaine pulled Emilie by the sleeve, and

pointed out to her Maximilien Longueville seated behind the desk, and

engaged in paying out the change for a gold piece to one of the

workwomen with whom he seemed to be in consultation. The "handsome

stranger" held in his hand a parcel of patterns, which left no doubt

as to his honorable profession.

Emilie felt an icy shudder, though no one perceived it. Thanks to the

good breeding of the best society, she completely concealed the rage

in her heart, and answered her sister-in-law with the words, "I knew

it," with a fulness of intonation and inimitable decision which the

most famous actress of the time might have envied her. She went

straight up to the desk. Longueville looked up, put the patterns in

his pocket with distracting coolness, bowed to Mademoiselle de

Fontaine, and came forward, looking at her keenly.

"Mademoiselle," he said to the shopgirl, who followed him, looking

very much disturbed, "I will send to settle that account; my house

deals in that way. But here," he whispered into her ear, as he gave

her a thousand-franc note, "take this--it is between ourselves.--You

will forgive me, I trust, mademoiselle," he added, turning to Emilie.

"You will kindly excuse the tyranny of business matters."

"Indeed, monsieur, it seems to me that it is no concern of mine,"

replied Mademoiselle de Fontaine, looking at him with a bold

expression of sarcastic indifference which might have made any one

believe that she now saw him for the first time.

"Do you really mean it?" asked Maximilien in a broken voice.

Emilie turned her back upon him with amazing insolence. These words,

spoken in an undertone, had escaped the ears of her two sisters-in-

law. When, after buying the cape, the three ladies got into the

carriage again, Emilie, seated with her back to the horses, could not

resist one last comprehensive glance into the depths of the odious

shop, where she saw Maximilien standing with his arms folded, in the

attitude of a man superior to the disaster that has so suddenly fallen

on him. Their eyes met and flashed implacable looks. Each hoped to

inflict a cruel wound on the heart of a lover. In one instant they

were as far apart as if one had been in China and the other in

Greenland.

Does not the breath of vanity wither everything? Mademoiselle de

Fontaine, a prey to the most violent struggle that can torture the

heart of a young girl, reaped the richest harvest of anguish that

prejudice and narrow-mindedness ever sowed in a human soul. Her face,

but just now fresh and velvety, was streaked with yellow lines and red

patches; the paleness of her cheeks seemed every now and then to turn

green. Hoping to hide her despair from her sisters, she would laugh as

she pointed out some ridiculous dress or passer-by; but her laughter

was spasmodic. She was more deeply hurt by their unspoken compassion

than by any satirical comments for which she might have revenged

herself. She exhausted her wit in trying to engage them in a

conversation, in which she tried to expend her fury in senseless

paradoxes, heaping on all men engaged in trade the bitterest insults

and witticisms in the worst taste.

On getting home, she had an attack of fever, which at first assumed a

somewhat serious character. By the end of a month the care of her

parents and of the physician restored her to her family.