IV
Madame sailed out of the room and Laurent was left alone with Fernande. Already the strain seemed to have been lifted from her nerves; the hectic flush of a while ago had fled from her cheeks and left her face pale and her eyes calm and clear. Laurent approached her, quivering with excitement; the insensate jealousy which never ceased to torture him had him now under its evil sway. He tried to draw Fernande close to him, and almost uttered a cry of rage when she appeared unresponsive and turned quite coolly away from him.
"Fernande," he said, and tried in vain to subdue the harshness of his voice, which he felt must grate unpleasantly on the young girl's overstrung nerves, "I heard most of what you said to my mother. She is hurt—and justly so—at your attitude. Will you let me go to her with a message from you, telling her that you were overwrought and hardly conscious of what you said?"
"You may go, Laurent," replied Fernande coldly, "and tell ma tante that I am deeply grieved if what I said did really offend her. I did not mean to offend. I only meant to strike a note of warning. It hath proved jarring," she added dejectedly, "and of no avail. Therefore am I doubly sorry. But, even so, I would not have it unsaid."
"Not even if I were to tell you, Fernande, that your hot defence of that traitor went to my heart like a knife and caused me infinite pain."
"If what I said about your brother hurts you, Laurent, then you must be harbouring thoughts about me which are an insult to your future wife."
"If only I could believe that you loved me!" he cried, as with sudden and passionate impulse he once more tried to take her in his arms. His glowing eyes strove to meet her glance, but she seemed utterly unapproachable as she stood beside him like a slender white lily, with her small head averted and her blue eyes looking out into the distance as far away from him as was the heaven of which he dreamed. His arms dropped listlessly to his side.
"If I only could believe that you loved me, Fernande," he reiterated sadly.
"Poor Laurent," she murmured gently. Of her own free will now she placed her cool fingers upon his lips, and he seized upon them hungrily and covered them with kisses. "Poor Laurent! I told you, did I not, on the day nearly a year ago now, when I solemnly plighted my troth to you in response to my father's wish, that I had it not in me to love any man? Methinks that I shall never know really what love is.... I shall never know," she added, with a quaint, melancholy little sigh, "the kind of love which is for ever wounding and hurting the thing it loves."
"Forgive me, Fernande," he cried, already repentant, cursing himself for his perpetual folly, and knowing all the while that nothing would ever cure him of it. "I am a jealous brute, I know. I hate and despise myself every time that my temper offends you. But if you only knew, Fernande ..." he sighed, "if only you could understand...."
"I do know, Laurent, and I do understand ... am I not always ready to forgive?... But you must try, dear, to trust me a little better. A scene like the one we have just had is not an over good augury for our future, is it?"
"I hated to hear you speak so warmly about that man."
"I called him brave ... can you deny that he is?"
"No ... but...."
"There! there!" she said soothingly, dealing with him with infinite gentleness now that she had reduced him to a state of remorse. "Go and speak with ma tante, and make my excuses to her, if you think they are necessary."
She held out her cheek to him with one of her most captivating smiles, and poor Laurent was ready to sob with delight. She allowed him to take her in his arms and to kiss her sweet lips, her eyes, her hair, and if she did not respond to his caresses quite as ardently as he would have wished, he had, nevertheless, no cause to complain that she withdrew herself from them.
"My mother said that we were to discuss the question of your going to Courson," he said, before he finally took leave of her.
"Oh, as to that," she rejoined coolly, "you may tell ma tante that I have changed my mind. She did not approve of my going, did she? so I will, if I may," she added, with a sweet air of innocence, "remain at La Frontenay for a few days longer with her."
"Fernande, you are an angel!" he exclaimed. And he dropped on his knee and kissed her little hand with the same fervour as he would have kissed the robe of a Madonna. His head was bent and the tears of remorse still hung upon his lashes, or else, no doubt, he would have perceived the strange, elusive smile which lingered round his beloved one's lips.