"I thank you—ask me not for what! do you ask me for what? for the only moment of thorough delight I have felt since your departure. God knows this is folly, and foolish jealousy, but it is most worthy of pity. You were jealous once, though you forget it. Oh, you men are happy when you are jealous, because you can fight with your rivals and kill or be slain; but we women can only weep, though we perceive that our tears are useless if not dangerous. For our tears part us from our beloved rather than wash us nearer; our grief is the vertigo of love—it hurls us towards the abyss which we see without avail. I thank you again, George; you see that I am happy anew and weep no more."
She tried to laugh; but in her repining she had forgotten how to be merry, and the tone was so sad and doleful that the count shuddered.
"Be blessed, O God!" she said, "for he would not have the power to love me from the day when he pities me."
Charny felt he was dragged down a steep where in time he would be in the impossibility of checking himself. He made an effort to stop, like those skaters who lean back on their heels at the risk of breaking through the ice.
"Will you not permit me to offer the fruit of my long absence by explaining what I have been happy to do for your sake?" he said.
"Oh, Charny, I like better to have things as I said just now; but you are right: the woman must not too long forget she is a Queen. Speak, ambassador, the woman has obtained all she had a right to claim—the Queen listens."
The count related how he had surveyed the way for the flight of the Royal Family, and how all was ready. She listened with deep attention and fervent gratitude. It seemed to her that mere devotion could not go so far; that it must be ardent and unquiet love to foresee such obstacles and invent the means to cope with and overcome them.
"So you are quite happy to save me?" she asked at the end, regarding him with supreme affection.
"Oh, can you ask me that? it is the dream of my ambition, and it will be the glory of my life if I attain it."