Madeleine took her seat before a small rosewood table, and with a pencil in her hand, and a piece of drawing-paper before her, said, "You will not mind my sketching as we talk. I have an idea floating through my head, and I want to throw it off on paper; I can listen and answer, just as well, with my fingers occupied."
Well might Gaston contemplate her in silent and wondering admiration. Neither her countenance nor her manner betrayed any trace of the suffering she must have endured on the day previous. She seemed to have completely banished its recollection from her thoughts. M. de Bois was fearful of touching upon the subject, it seemed so wholly to have vanished from her mind; yet his errand compelled him.
"What courage, what perseverance you possess, Mademoiselle Madeleine! It is incredible,—inexplicable," he said, at last, as he watched the delicate fingers moving over the paper.
"There you err," answered Madeleine, brightly. "It is, at least, very explicable, for it is in working that I find my strength, my inspiration, my consolation! It was work, incessant work, which sustained me when I determined to take a step from which my weaker, frailer part shrank. A step which utter wretchedness first suggested to me; which seemed terribly galling, oppressively revolting; which I ventured upon with inconceivable pain. Yet, as you have seen, I was enabled, in time, to look upon that step with resignation; I afterwards contemplated it with pride; I now regard it with positive pleasure. This could never have been had I not resolved to resist all temptation to brood over grief, and turned to work as a refuge from sorrow."
"And it is really true, then, that you, a lady of noble birth, dropping from so high a sphere into one not merely humble, but laborious, find your vocation a pleasure at last."
"It is most true," said Madeleine lifting her beautiful eyes, with such a radiant expression that the genuineness of her reply could not be doubted. "When one has, for years, lived upon the bare suffrage of others, no matter how dear,—when one has had no home except that which was granted through courtesy, compassion, charity,—you cannot conceive how delicious it is to dream of independence, of a home of one's own! And this sweet dream has become reality to me more speedily and more surely than my most sanguine hopes dared to anticipate. Think, in what a rapid, an almost miraculous manner my undertaking has prospered; by what magic my former life (that of an aristocratic lady who employed herself a little, but without decided results) has been exchanged for the delights of a life of active use, bringing forth golden fruition! In a word, how suddenly my poverty has been turned to wealth,—at all events, to the certain promise of opulence. And the most delightful sense of all is the internal satisfaction of knowing that I have done this myself, unaided; save, indeed, by the kindness, the counsel, the invisible protection of such a friend as you are, and such a friend as Mr. Hilson has proved."
"We have done nothing—but watch and admire."
"Nothing?" answered Madeleine, with gentle reproach. "Who helped me carry out all my projects? When a man's hand was needed, who stretched out his? but always with such prudence and delicacy that I could not be compromised. How helpless I should have been in Paris without you! And how many mistakes might I not have committed in America without Mr. Hilson's aid! Little did he think, when he dined at the Château de Gramont, with a noble family, and asked one of its members to promise that if she ever visited America she would apprise him of her presence there,—little could he imagine how soon she would make a home in his native land, and of what inestimable aid his friendship would be to her."
"He has been truly serviceable," answered Gaston. "His advice was always good, and in nothing better than in deciding you to take this house, which you, at first thought too magnificent; he was wise, also, in persuading you to furnish it so luxuriously. He comprehended, better than you or I did, that a certain amount of pomp and show would make a desirable impression upon the inhabitants even of a republican country."