“I never declared it; she guessed it, perhaps inevitably.” They were walking on again, and he shrugged his shoulders. “Que voulez-vous? She has a certain tenderness for me that gives perception, and I adore her—but adore her, you understand.” Damier was understanding and not at all disliking this victim of the glamour—or, was it not deeper than that? Something in the Frenchman’s voice touched him. Would Claire ever arouse a deeper affection than this? Not only had she cast her glamour upon him: he evidently loved her—“but adore her, you understand,” as he had said in his expressive French.
His hands clasped behind him, Monsieur Daunay, with now a reminiscent confidence, shook his head and sighed profoundly. “Que voulez-vous?” he repeated. “Since her girlhood it has been with me a hidden passion. Ce que j’ai souffert!” He showed no antagonism now, no resentment; Damier could but be grateful.
“Claire has not suffered through me,” he went on. “She allows me to love her, but she knows that she is free. What can I claim?—an honorable man, and shackled. Yet—I have always hoped that she might, generously and nobly, keep an unclaimed faith with me. I have claimed none, and yet she has assured me that, as yet, she loves no other. I have needed the assurance of late—I confess it. Your apparent courtship I could not reproach her with,—though it tore my heart,—but her permission of this ill-omened Lord Epsil’s attentions filled me with consternation; I have felt myself justified in reproaching her for her légèreté in regard to this.”
“But,” said Damier, after a slight pause, “this unclaimed faith—how do you expect her to keep it?”
There was a touch of embarrassment in Monsieur Daunay’s voice as he answered: “My wife and I have, for years, been on most unfortunate terms; I have no reproaches to address myself on her account. She is a confirmed invalid, and of late her condition has been critical. One must not hope for certain contingencies—one must not, indeed, admit the thought of them too often; but—if they did arise—“
“I see,” said Damier, gravely; “you could claim her. It is, indeed, a most unpleasant contingency. Would it not be for Claire’s happiness if you were not to see her again until it arose?”
“Ah, no,” said Daunay, with something of weariness; “ah, no; her happiness is not involved. Claire—I speak frankly; my affection for her has never blinded me—Claire is not easily made unhappy by her sympathies. It is only myself I hurt by remaining near her, by seeing her, as I constantly imagine, on the point of abandoning me. But to leave her—you ask of me more than I am capable of doing.”
Later, when Damier told him of Madame Vicaud’s knowledge of the situation, Monsieur Daunay heaved another, not regretful, sigh.
“It is as well. I will say to her what I have said to you. She will be generous; she will understand.”
Damier felt oddly, when he parted with him, that he might trust Monsieur Daunay, but that he trusted Claire less than ever.