“You are very proud, my dear Jack; you were not so always.”
“That is very true, sir, and also that your presence, that I once was forced to endure, has now become odious to me.”
The attitude of the young man was so determined and so insulting, his looks so thoroughly carried out his words, that the poet dared not add one word, and descended the stairs, where his careful costume was strangely out of place. When Jack heard his last footfall, he returned to his room: on the threshold stood Ida, strangely white, her eyes swollen with tears and sleep.
“I was there,” she said in a low voice; “I heard everything, even that I was old and had wrinkles.”
He approached her, took her hands, and looked into the depths of her eyes.
“He is not far away. Shall I call him?”
She disengaged her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and with one of those sudden impulses that prevented her from being utterly unworthy, exclaimed, “You are right, Jack; I am your mother, and only your mother!”
Some days after this scene, Jack wrote the following letter to M. Rivals:—
“My Dear Friend: She has left me, and gone back to him. It all happened in such an unexpected manner that I have not yet recovered from the blow. Alas! she of whom I must complain is my mother. It would be more dignified to keep silence, but I cannot. I knew in my childhood a negro lad who said, ‘If the world could not sigh, the world would stifle!’ I never fully understood this until to-day, for it seems to me that if I do not write you this letter, that I could not live. I could not wait until Sunday because I could not speak before Cécile. I told you of the explanation that man and I had, did I not? Well, from that time my mother was so very sad, and seemed so worn out by the scene she had gone through, that I resolved to change our residence. I understood that a battle was being fought, and that, if I wished her to be victorious, if I wished to keep my mother with me, that I must employ all means and devices. Our street and house displeased her. I wanted something gayer and more airy. I hired then at Charonne Rue de Silas three rooms newly papered. I furnished these rooms with great care. All the money I had saved—pardon me these details—I devoted to this purpose. Bélisaire aided me in moving, while Zénaïde was in the same street, and I counted on her in many ways. All these arrangements were made secretly, and I hoped a great surprise and pleasure was in store for my mother. The place was as quiet as a village street, the trees were well grown and green, and I fancied that she would, when established there, have less to regret in the country-life she had so much enjoyed.
“Yesterday evening everything was in readiness. Belisaire was to tell her that I was waiting for her at the Rondics, and then he was to take her to our new home. I was there waiting; white curtains hung at all the windows, and great bunches of roses were on the chimney. I had made a little fire, for the evening was cool, and it gave a home look to the room. In the midst of my contentment I had a sudden presentiment. It was like an electric spark. ‘She will not come.’ In vain did I call myself an idiot, in vain did I arrange and rearrange her chair and her footstool. I knew that she would never come. More than once in my life I have had these intuitions. One might believe that Fate, before striking her heaviest blows, had a moment of compassion, and gave me a warning.