As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with much dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart from her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the least intimidated by her coldness, said at once, “I ought to tell you, madame, that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He has passed through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when constitutions can be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the rough trials to which it has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him with his musk and his other perfumes. I took him away from the poisonous atmosphere, and now I hope the boy is out of danger. Leave him to me a while longer, and you shall have him back more healthy than ever, and capable of renewing the battle of life; but if you let that impostor Hirsch get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to get rid of him forever.”
“Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such an insult?” and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with a few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her son. She found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off some outer husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He turned pale when he saw her.
“You have come to take me away,” he exclaimed.
“Not at all,” she answered, hastily. “The doctor wishes you to remain, and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so tenderly?”
For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his mother, and a departure from the roof under which he was would have certainly caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable; she looked tired and troubled.
“We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese prince at the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D’Argenton has translated it into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese tongue. I find it very difficult, and have come to the conclusion that literature is not my forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent, and has not now one subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is dead. Do you remember him?”
At this moment Cécile came in and was received by Charlotte with the most flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of D’Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely, for he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in Cécile’s pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless babble of his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame D’Argenton to remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long, and was uneasily occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her delay, which should be in readiness when she encountered her poet’s frowning face.
“Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your letter ‘to be called for,’ for M. D’Argenton is much vexed with you just now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next letter, for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my sentences sometimes; but don’t mind, dear, you will understand.”
She acknowledged her slavery with naïveté, and Jack was consoled for the tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in excellent spirits, and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her, and her travelling-bag carried as lightly as she carried all the burdens of life.
Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the depths of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they expand on the surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and filling the air with their delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the love of these two young hearts. With Cécile, the divine flower had grown in a limpid soul, where the most careless eyes could have discerned it. With Jack, its roots had been tangled and deformed, but when the stems reached the regions of air and light, they straightened themselves, and needed but little more to burst into flower.