CHAPTER II.
TWO FAST FRIENDS.
George-Rene de Lucan was an intimate friend of the Count Pierre de Moras, Clotilde's cousin. They had been companions in boyhood, in youth, in travels, and even in battle; for, chance having led them to the United States at the outbreak of the war of the rebellion, they had deemed it a favorable opportunity to receive the baptism of fire. Their friendship had become still more sternly tempered in the midst of these dangers of warfare sustained fraternally far from their own country. That friendship had had, moreover, for a long time, a character of rare confidence, delicacy, and strength. They entertained the highest esteem for each other, and their mutual confidence was not misplaced. They, however, bore no resemblance whatever to each other. Pierre de Moras was of tall stature, blonde as a Scandinavian, handsome and strong as a lion, but as a good-natured lion. Lucan was dark, slender, elegant and grave. There was in his cold and gentle accent, in his very bearing, a certain grace mingled with authority, that was both imposing and charming.
They were not less dissimilar in a moral point of view; the former a jolly companion, an absolute and settled skeptic, the careless possessor of a danseuse; the latter always agitated despite his outer calm, romantic, passionate, tormented with love and theology. Pierre de Moras, on their return from America, had presented Lucan to his cousin Clotilde, and from that moment there were at least two points upon which they agreed perfectly; profound esteem for Clotilde, and deep-seated antipathy for her husband.
They appreciated, however, each in his own way, Monsieur de Trecœur's character and conduct. For the Count Pierre, Trecœur was simply a mischievous being; in Monsieur de Lucan's eyes, he was a criminal.
"Why criminal?" Pierre said. "Is it his fault if he was born with the eternal flames on the marrow of his bones? I admit that I feel quite disposed to break his head when I see Clotilde's eyes red; but I would not feel any more angry about it, than if I were crushing a serpent under my heel. Since it is his nature, the poor man can't help it."
"That little system of yours would simply suppress all merit, all will, all liberty; in a word, the whole moral world. If we are not the masters of our own passions, at least to a great extent, and if, on the contrary, it is our passions that fatally control us; if a man is necessarily good or bad, honest or a knave, loyal or a traitor, at the mercy of his instincts, tell me, if you please, why you honor me with your esteem and your friendship? I have no right to them any more than any one else, any more than Trecœur himself."
"I beg your pardon, my friend," said Pierre gravely; "in the vegetable world I prefer a rose to a thistle; in the moral world, I prefer you to Trecœur. You were born a gallant fellow; I rejoice at it, and I make the best of it."
"Well, mon cher, you are laboring under a complete mistake," rejoined Lucan. "I was born, on the contrary, with the most detestable instincts, with the germ of all vices."
"Like Socrates?"
"Like Socrates, exactly. And if my father had not chastised me in time, if my mother had not been a saint, finally, if I had not myself placed, with the utmost energy, my will at the service of my conscience, I would be to-day, a faithless and lawless scoundrel."
"But nothing proves that you will not turn out a scoundrel one of these days, my dear friend. There is no one but may become a scoundrel at the proper time. Everything depends upon the extent and strength of the temptation. Whatever may be your instinct of honor and dignity, are you yourself quite sure never to meet with a temptation sufficiently powerful to overcome your principles? Can you not conceive, for instance, some circumstance in which you might love a woman enough to commit a crime?"
"No," said Lucan; "do you?"
"I!—I deserve no credit. I have no passions. It is extremely mortifying, but I have none. I was born to be an exemplary man. You remember my childhood; I was a little model. Now I am a big model, that's all the difference—and it does not cost me any effort whatever. Shall we go and see Clotilde?"
"Let us go!"
And they went to Clotilde's, very worthy herself of the friendship of these two excellent fellows.
There they were received with marked consideration, even by Mademoiselle Julia, who seemed to feel, to a certain degree, the prestige of these superior natures. Both had, moreover, in their manners and language an elegant correctness that apparently satisfied the child's delicate taste and her artistic instincts.
During the early period of her mourning, Julia's disposition had assumed a somewhat shy and somber cast; when her mother received visitors, she left the parlor abruptly, and went to lock herself up in her own room, not, however, without manifesting toward the indiscreet guests a haughty displeasure. Cousin Pierre and his friend had alone the privilege of a kindly greeting; she even deigned to leave her apartment and come and join them at her mother's side when she knew that they were there.
Clotilde had therefore good reasons to believe that her preference for Monsieur de Lucan would obtain her daughter's approbation; she unfortunately had better ones still to doubt that Monsieur de Lucan's disposition corresponded with her own. Not only, indeed, had he always maintained toward her the terms of the most reserved friendship, but, since she had been a widow, that reserve had become perceptibly aggravated. Lucan's visits became fewer and briefer; he even seemed to take particular care in avoiding all occasions of finding himself alone with Clotilde, as if he had penetrated her secret feelings, and had affected to discourage them. Such were the sadly significant symptoms which Clotilde had communicated in confidence to her mother.
On the very day when the baroness was receiving this unpleasant information at the residence of her daughter, a conversation was taking place upon the same subject between the Count de Moras and George de Lucan, in the latter's apartment. They had taken together, during the forenoon a ride through the Bois, and Lucan had shown himself even more silent than usual. At the moment of parting:
"Apropos, Pierre," he said, "I am tired of Paris; I am going to travel."
"Going to travel! Where on earth?"
"I am going to Sweden. I have always wished to see Sweden."
"What a singular thing! Will you be gone long?"
"Two or three months."
"When do you expect to leave?"
"To-morrow."
"Alone?"
"Entirely so. I'll see you again at the club, to-night, won't I?"
The strange reserve of this dialogue left upon the mind of Monsieur de Moras an impression of surprise and uneasiness. He was unable to withstand the feeling, and two hours later he returned to Lucan's. As he went in, preparations for traveling greeted his eyes on all sides. Lucan was engaged writing in his study.
"Now, my dear fellow!" said the count to him, "if I am impertinent, say so frankly and at once; but this sudden and hurried voyage doesn't look like anything. Seriously, what is the matter? Are you going to fight a duel outside the frontier?":
"Bah! In that case I should take you with me; you know that very well."
"A woman, then?"
"Yes," said Lucan dryly.
"Excuse my importunity, and good-by."
"I have wounded your feelings, dear friend?" said Lucan, detaining him.
"Yes," said the count, "I certainly do not pretend to enter into your secrets; but I do not absolutely understand the tone of restraint, and almost of hostility, in which you are answering me on the subject of this journey. It is not, moreover, the first symptoms of that nature that strike and grieve me; for some time past, I find you visibly embarrassed in your intercourse with me; it seems as though I were in your way and my friendship were a burden to you, and the cruel idea has occurred to my mind that this journey is merely a way of putting an end to it."
"Mon Dieu!" murmured Lucan. "Well, then," he went on with evident agitation in his voice, "I must tell you the whole truth; I hoped that you would have guessed it—it is so simple. Your cousin, Clotilde, has now been a widow for nearly two years; that, I believe, is the term consecrated by custom to the mourning of a husband. I am aware of your feelings toward her; you may now marry her, and you will be perfectly right in doing so. Nothing seems to me more just, more natural, more worthy of her and of yourself. I beg to assure you that my friendship for you shall remain faithful and entire, but I trust you will not object to my keeping away for a short time. That's all."
Monsieur de Moras seemed to have infinite difficulty in comprehending the meaning of this speech; he remained for several seconds after Lucan had ceased to speak, with wondering countenance and fixed gaze, as if trying to find the solution of a riddle; then rising abruptly and grasping both Lucan's hands:
"Ah! that's kind of you, that is!" he said with grave emotion.
And after another cordial grasp, he added gayly:
"But if you expect to stay in Sweden until I have married Clotilde, you may begin building and even planting there, for I swear to you that you shall stay long enough for either purpose."
"Is it possible that you do not love her?" said Lucan in a half whisper.
"I love her very much, on the contrary; I appreciate her, I admire her; but she is a sister to me, purely a sister. The most delightful thing about it, mon cher, is that it has always been my dream to have you and Clotilde marry; only you seemed to be so cold, so little attentive, so rebellious, particularly lately. Mon Dieu! how pale you are, George!"
The final result of this conversation was that Monsieur de Lucan, instead of starting for Sweden, called a little later to see the Baroness de Pers, to whom he exposed his aspirations, and who thought herself, as she listened to him, in the midst of an enchanting dream. She had, however, beneath her frivolous manners too profound a sentiment of her own dignity and that of her daughter, to manifest in the presence of Monsieur de Lucan the joy that overwhelmed her. Whatever desire she might have felt of clasping immediately upon her heart this ideal son-in-law, she deferred that satisfaction and contented herself with expressing to him her personal sympathy. Appreciating, however, Monsieur de Lucan's just impatience, she advised him to call that very evening upon Madame de Trecœur, of whose personal sentiments she was herself ignorant, but who could not fail to meet his advances with the esteem and the consideration due to a man of his merit and standing. Being left alone, the baroness gave way to her feelings in a soliloquy mingled with tears; she, however, purposely omitted to notify Clotilde, preferring with her maternal taste to leave her the whole enjoyment of that surprise.
The heart of woman is an organ infinitely more delicate than ours. The constant exercise which they give it develops within it finer and subtler faculties than the dry masculine intellect can ever hope to possess; that accounts for their presentiments, less rare and more certain than ours. It seems as though their sensibility, always strained and vibrating, might be warned by mysterious currents of divine instinct, and that it guesses even before it can understand. Clotilde, when Monsieur de Lucan was announced, was, as it were, struck by one of these secret electric thrills, and in spite of all the objections to the contrary that beset her mind, she felt that she was loved, and that she was on the point of being told so. She sat down in her great arm-chair, drawing up with both hands the silk of her dress, with the gesture of a bird that flaps its wings. Lucan's visible agitation further enlightened and delighted her. In such men, armed with powerful but sternly restrained passions, accustomed to control their own feelings, intrepid and calm, agitation is either frightful or charming.
After informing her—which was entirely useless—that his visit to her was one of unusual importance:
"Madam," he added, "the request I am about to address you demands, I know, a well-matured answer. I will therefore beg of you not to give that answer to-day, the more so that it would indeed be painful to me to hear it from your own lips if it where not a favorable one."
"Mon Dieu! monsieur!" said Clotilde faintly.
"The baroness, your mother, madam, whom I had the pleasure of seeing during the day, was kind enough to hold out some encouragement to me—in a measure—and to permit me to hope that you might entertain some esteem for me, or at least that you had no prejudice against me. As to myself madam, I—mon Dieu! I love you, in a word, and I cannot imagine a greater happiness in the world than that which I would hold at your hands. You have known me for a long time; I have nothing to tell you concerning myself. And now, I shall wait."
She detained him with a sign of her hand, and tried to speak; but her eyes filled with tears. She hid her face in her hands, and she murmured:
"Excuse me! I have been so rarely happy! I don't know what it is!"
Lucan got gently down upon his knees before her, and when their eyes met, their two hearts suddenly filled like two cups.
"Speak, my friend!" she resumed. "Tell me again that you love me. I was so far from thinking it! And why is it? And since when?"
He explained to her his mistake, his painful struggle between his love for her and his friendship for Pierre.
"Poor Pierre!" said Clotilde, "what an excellent fellow. But no, really!"
Then he made her smile by telling her what mortal terror and apprehension had taken possession of his soul at the moment when he was asking her to decide upon his fate; she had seemed too him, more than ever, at that moment, a lovely and sainted creature, and so much above him, that his pretension of being loved by her, of becoming her husband, had suddenly appeared to him as a pretension almost sacrilegious.
"Oh, mon Dieu!" she said, "what an opinion have you formed of me, then? It's frightful! On the contrary, I thought myself too simple, too commonplace for you; I thought that you must be fond of romantic passions, of great adventures; you have somewhat the appearance of it, and even the reputation; and I am so far from being a woman of that kind!"
Upon that slight invitation, he told her two events of his past life which had been full of trite excitement, and had afforded him nothing but disappointment and disgust. Never, however, before having met her, had the thought of marrying occurred to him; in the matter of love as in the matter of friendship, he had always had the imagination taken up with a certain ideal, somewhat romantic indeed, and he had feared never to find it in marriage. He might have looked for it elsewhere, in great adventures, as she said; but he loved order and dignity in life, and he had the misfortune of being unable to live at war with his own conscience. Such had been his agitated youth.
"You ask me," he went on with effusion, "why I love you. I love you because you alone have succeeded in harmonizing within my heart two sentiments which had hitherto struggled for its mastery at the cost of fearful anguish; honor and passion. Never before knowing you had I yielded to one of these sentiments without being made wretched by the other. They always seemed, irreconcilable to me. Never had I yielded to passion without remorse; never had I resisted it without regret. Whether weak or strong, I have always been unhappy and tortured. You alone made me understand that I could love at once with all the ardor and all the dignity of my soul; and I selected you because you are affectionate and you are sincere; because you are handsome and you are pure; because there are embodied in you both duty and rapture, love and respect, intoxication and peace. Such is the woman, such is the angel you are to me, Clotilde."
She listened to him half reclining, drinking in his words and manifesting in her eyes a sort of celestial surprise.
But it seems—who has not experienced it?—that human happiness cannot touch certain heights without drawing the lightning upon itself. Clotilde in the midst of her ecstasy shuddered suddenly and started to her feet. She had just heard a smothered cry, followed by the dull sound of a falling body. She ran, opened the door, and in the center of the adjoining room saw Julia stretched upon the floor.
She supposed that the child at the moment of entering the parlor had overheard some of their words, and then the thought of seeing her father's place occupied by another, striking her thus without warning, had stirred to its very depths that passionate young soul. Clotilde followed her into her room, where she had her carried, and expressed the wish of remaining alone with her. While lavishing upon her cares, caresses, and kisses, it was not without fearful anguish that she awaited her daughter's first glance. That glance fell upon her at first with vague uncertainty, then with a sort of wild stupor. The child pushed her away, gently; she was trying to collect her ideas, and as the expression of her thought grew firmer in her eyes, her mother could plainly read in them a violent strife of opposing feelings.
"I beg of you, I beseech you, my darling daughter," murmured Clotilde, whose tears fell drop by drop upon the pale visage of the child.
Suddenly Julia seized her by the neck, drew her down upon herself, and kissing her passionately:
"You have hurt me much," she said, "oh! very much more than you can imagine; but I love you. I love you a great deal; I shall, I must always, I assure you."
She burst into sobs, and both wept long, closely clasped to each other.
In the meantime Monsieur de Lucan had deemed it advisable to send for the Baroness de Pers, whom he was entertaining in the parlor. The baroness on hearing what was going on had manifested more agitation than surprise.
"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, "I expected it fully, my dear sir. I did not tell you anything about it, because we hadn't got so far yet; but I expected it fully. That child will kill my daughter. She will finish what her father has so well begun; for it is purely a miracle if my daughter, after all she has suffered, has been able to recover as far as you see. I must leave them together. I am not going in there. Oh, mon Dieu! I am not going in there! In the first place, I would be afraid of annoying my daughter, and besides, that would be entirely out of my character."
"How old is Mademoiselle Julia?" inquired Lucan, who retained under these painful circumstances his quiet courtesy.
"Why, she is almost fifteen, and I'm not sorry for it, by the way, for, entre nous, we may reasonably hope to get honestly rid of her within a year or two. Oh! she will have no trouble in getting married, no trouble whatever, you may be sure. In the first place she is rich, and then, after all, she is a pretty monster, there is no gainsaying that, and there is no lack of men who admire that style."
Clotilde joined them at last. Whatever might have been her inward emotion, she appeared calm, having nothing theatrical in her ways. She replied simply, in a low and gentle voice, to her mother's feverish questions; she remained convinced that this misfortune would not have happened, if she could have herself informed Julia, with some precautions, of the event which chance had abruptly revealed to her. Addressing then a sad smile to Monsieur de Lucan:
"These family difficulties, sir," she said to him, "could not have formed a part of your anticipations, and I should deem it quite natural were they to lead to some modification of your plans.":
An expressive anxiety became depicted upon Lucan's features. "If you ask me to restore to you your freedom," he said, "I cannot but comply; if it is your delicacy alone that has spoken, I beg to assure you that you are still dearer to me since I have seen you suffer on my account, and suffer with so much dignity."
She held out her hand, which he seized, bowing low at the same time.
"I shall love your daughter so much," he said, "that she will forgive me."
"Yes, I hope so," said Clotilde; "nevertheless, she wishes to enter a convent for a few months, and I have consented."
Her voice trembled and her eyes became moist.
"Excuse me, sir," she added; "I have no right as yet to make you participate to such an extent in my sorrows. May I beg of you to leave me alone with my mother?"
Lucan murmured a few words of respect, and withdrew. It was quite true, as he had said, that Clotilde was dearer to him than ever. Nothing had inspired him with such a lofty idea of the moral worth of that woman as her attitude during that trying evening. Stricken in the midst of her flight of happiness, she had fallen without a cry, without a groan, striving to hide her wound; she had manifested in his presence that exquisite modesty in suffering so rare among her sex. He was the more grateful to her for it, that he was deeply averse to those pathetic and turbulent demonstrations which most women never fail to eagerly exhibit on every occasion, when they are indeed kind enough not to bring them about.