She turned, with a brisk yet graceful abruptness, to the two ladies still seated before the low fire. With a charming outburst of enthusiasm she exclaimed aloud:
"What a beauty, and youth, and tenderness this spring has, has it not?"
"Yes," answered the duchesse, smiling graciously into Madame de Sévigné's brilliantly lit face; "yes, the weather in truth has been perfect."
"What an adorable journey we have had!" continued Madame de Sévigné, in the same tone, her ardor undampened by the cooler accent of her friend—she was used to having her enthusiasm greeted with consideration rather than response. "What a journey!—only meeting with the most agreeable of adventures; not the slightest inconvenience anywhere; eating the very best of everything; and driving through the heart of this enchanting springtime!"
Her listeners laughed quietly, with an accent of indulgence. It was the habit of her world to find everything Madame de Sévigné did or said charming. Even her frankness was forgiven her, her tact was so perfect; and her spontaneity had always been accounted as her chief excellence; in the stifled air of the court and the ruelles it had been frequently likened to the blowing in of a fresh May breeze. Her present mood was one well known to both ladies.
"Always 'pretty pagan,' dear madame," smiled Madame de Kerman, indulgently. "How well named—and what a happy hit of our friend Arnauld d'Audilly! You are in truth a delicious—an adorable pagan! You have such a sense of the joy of living! Why, even living in the country has, it appears, no terrors for you. We hear of your walking about in the moonlight-you make your very trees talk, they tell us, in Italian—in Latin; you actually pass whole hours alone with the hamadryads!" There was just a suspicion of irony in Madame de Kerman's tone, in spite of its caressing softness; it was so impossible to conceive of anyone really finding nature endurable, much less pretending to discover in trees and flowers anything amusing or suggestive of sentiment!
But Madame de Sévigné was quite impervious to her friend's raillery.
She responded, with perfect good humor:
"Why not?—why not try to discover beauties in nature? One can be so happy in a wood! What a charming thing to hear a leaf sing! I know few things more delightful than to watch the triumph of the month of May when the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the lark open the spring in our forests! And then, later, come those beautiful crystal days of autumn—days that are neither warm, nor yet are they really cold! And then the trees—how eloquent they can be made; with a little teaching they may be made to converse so charmingly. Bella cosa far aniente, says one of my trees; and another answers, Amor odit inertes. Ah, when I had to bid farewell to all my leaves and trees; when my son had to dispose of the forest of Buron, to pay for some of his follies, you remember how I wept! It seemed to me I could actually feel the grief of those dispossessed sylvans and of all those homeless dryads!"
"It is this, dear friend—this life you lead at Les Rochers—and your enthusiasm, which keep you so young. Yes, I am sure of it. How inconceivably young, for instance, you are looking this very evening! You and the glow out yonder make youth seem no longer a legend."
The duchesse delivered her flattering little speech with a caressing tone. She moved gently forward in her chair, as if to gain a better view of the twilight and her friend. At the sound of the duchesse's voice Madame de Sévigné again turned, with the same charming smile and the quick impulsiveness of movement common to her. During her long monologue she had remained standing; but she left the window now to regain her seat amid the cushions of the window. There was something better than the twilight and the spring in the air; here, within, were two delightful friends-and listeners; there was before her, also, the prospect of one of those endless conversations that were the chief delight of her life.