What had become of Count Charny during this interval?
With his duty keeping him close to his masters, he was glad to have the Queen's signal for him to take some leisure for lonely reflection.
After having been so busy for others lately, he was not sorry to have time for his own distress.
He was the old-time nobleman, more a father than a brother to his younger brothers.
His grief had been great at Valence's death, but at least he had a comfort in the second brother Isidore on whom he placed the whole of his affection. Isidore had become more dear still since he was his intermediary with Andrea.
The less Charny saw of Andrea the more he thought of her, and to think of her was to love her. She was a statue when he saw her, but when he departed she became colored and animated by the distance. It seemed to him that internal fire sprang up in the alabaster mould and he could see the veins circulate blood and the heart throb.
It was in these times of loneliness and separation that the wife was the real rival of the Queen: in the feverish nights Charny saw the tapestry cleft or the walls melt to allow the transparent statue to approach his couch, with open arms and murmuring lips and kindled eye: the fire of her love beamed from within. He also would hold out his arms, calling the lovely vision, and try to press the phantom to his heart. But, alas! the vision would flee and, embracing vacancy, he would fall from his breathless dream into sad and cold reality.
Therefore, Isidore was dearer to him than Valence, and he had not the chance to mourn over him as he had over the cadet of the family.
Both had fallen for the same fatal woman and into the abyss of the same cause full of pitfalls. For them he would certainly fall.