"Come in, my fine fellow," she said. "How are you to-day? Pallor becomes you, do you know: it's a pleasure to look at you. Come in also, Dame Ruperta: take the path to the left, young man, Colombe is just coming down to the garden; it's the time when she always walks. Do you try and persuade her not to scold me too severely for admitting you."
"What!" cried Ascanio,—"Mademoiselle Colombe doesn't know—"
"No indeed! Do you think she would have consented to disobey her father? I have brought her up on correct principles. I disobeyed for both, myself. Faith! I don't care! we can't always live like hermits. Raimbault won't see anything, or, if he does, I have a way to make him hold his tongue; if worse comes to worst, it won't be the first time I have held my own against Monsieur le Prévôt!"
Dame Perrine was very loquacious concerning her master, but Ruperta alone followed her in what she said. Ascanio was standing still, listening to nothing save the beating of Ids heart. He did, however, hear these words, let fall by Dame Perrine as they moved away:—
"This is the path where Colombe walks every evening, and she will soon be here without doubt. You see that the sun won't reach you here, my gallant invalid."
Ascanio expressed his thanks with a gesture, and walked forward a few steps, once more immersed in his reverie, and anticipating what was to come with mingled anxiety and impatience. He heard Dame Perrine say to Ruperta as they walked along,—
"This is Colombe's favorite bench."
And upon that he left the two gossips to continue their walk and their conversation, and sat softly down without a word upon the sacred seat.
What was his purpose? whither was he going? He had no idea. He sought Colombe because she was young and fair, and he was young and fair. No ambitious thought had ever entered his head in connection with her. To be near her was his only desire: for the rest he put his trust in God, or, rather, he did not look so far into the future. There is no to-morrow in love.
Colombe, for her part, had thought more than once, and in spite of herself, of the young stranger who had appeared to her in her loneliness as Gabriel appeared to Mary. To see him once more had been from the first the secret desire of this child, who had hitherto had no desire. But, being abandoned by an inconsiderate father to the guardianship of her own virtue, she was too high-minded not to deal with herself with the severity which noble souls never think themselves free to dispense with unless their will is fettered. She therefore bravely put aside her thoughts of Ascanio, and yet those thoughts persisted in forcing a way through the triple ramparts Colombe had built around her heart, more easily than Ascanio made his way through the wall of the Grand-Nesle. So it was that Colombe had passed the three or four days since the engagement, alternating between the fear of not seeing Ascanio again, and alarm at the thought of being in his presence. Her only consolation was to dream of him as she sat at her work or walked in the garden. During the day she shut herself up in her own room, to the despair of Dame Perrine, who was thereby doomed to carry on a perpetual monologue in the abyss of her own thoughts. As soon as the intense heat of the day had gone by, she would go down to the cool, shady path, poetically christened by Dame Perrine the Evening Avenue, and there, sitting on the bench where Ascanio now sat, she would allow the sun to set and the stars to rise, listening and replying to her thoughts, until Dame Perrine came to tell her that it was time to retire.