“I have not imagination lively enough to interest myself in the destinies of Sirius in connection with our planet at a date so remote,” said Graham, smiling. Then he added in a whisper to Isaura, “My imagination does not carry me further than to wonder whether this day twelvemonth—the 8th of July-we two shall both be singling out that same star, and gazing on it as now, side by side.”
This was the sole utterance of that sentiment in which the romance of love is so rich that the Englishman addressed to Isaura during those memorable summer days at Enghien.
CHAPTER V.
The next morning the party broke up. Letters had been delivered both to Savarin and to Graham, which, even had the day for departure not been fixed, would have summoned them away. On reading his letter, Savarin’s brow became clouded. He made a sign to his wife after breakfast, and wandered away with her down an alley in the little garden. His trouble was of that nature which a wife either soothes or aggravates, according sometimes to her habitual frame of mind, sometimes to the mood of temper in which she may chance to be,—a household trouble, a pecuniary trouble.
Savarin was by no means an extravagant man. His mode of living, though elegant and hospitable, was modest compared to that of many French authors inferior to himself in the fame which at Paris brings a very good return in francs; but his station itself as the head of a powerful literary clique necessitated many expenses which were too congenial to his extreme good-nature to be regulated by strict prudence. His hand was always open to distressed writers and struggling artists, and his sole income was derived from his pen and a journal in which he was chief editor and formerly sole proprietor. But that journal had of late not prospered. He had sold or pledged a considerable share in the proprietorship. He had been compelled also to borrow a sum large for him, and the debt obtained from a retired bourgeois who lent out his moneys “by way,” he said, “of maintaining an excitement and interest in life,” would in a few days become due. The letter was not from that creditor; but it was from his publisher, containing a very disagreeable statement of accounts, pressing for settlement, and declining an offer of Savarin for a new book (not yet begun) except upon terms that the author valued himself too highly to accept. Altogether, the situation was unpleasant. There were many times in which Madame Savarin presumed to scold her distinguished husband for his want of prudence and thrift. But those were never the times when scolding could be of no use. It could clearly be of no use now. Now was the moment to cheer and encourage him; to reassure him as to his own undiminished powers and popularity, for he talked dejectedly of himself as obsolete and passing out of fashion; to convince him also of the impossibility that the ungrateful publisher whom Savarin’s more brilliant successes had enriched could encounter the odium of hostile proceedings; and to remind him of all the authors, all the artists, whom he in their earlier difficulties had so liberally assisted, and from whom a sum sufficing to pay the bourgeois creditor when the day arrived could now be honourably asked and would be readily contributed. In this last suggestion the homely prudent good-sense of Madame Savarin failed her. She did not comprehend that delicate pride of honour which, with all his Parisian frivolities and cynicism, dignified the Parisian man of genius. Savarin could not, to save his neck from a rope, have sent round the begging-hat to friends whom he had obliged. Madame Savarin was one of those women with large-lobed ears, who can be wonderfully affectionate, wonderfully sensible, admirable wives and mothers, and yet are deficient in artistic sympathies with artistic natures. Still, a really good honest wife is such an incalculable blessing to her lord, that, at the end of the talk in the solitary alley, this man of exquisite finesse, of the undefinably high-bred temperament, and, alas! the painful morbid susceptibility, which belongs to the genuine artistic character, emerged into the open sunlit lawn with his crest uplifted, his lip curved upward in its joyous mockery, and perfectly persuaded that somehow or other he should put down the offensive publisher, and pay off the unoffending creditor when the day for payment came. Still he had judgment enough to know that to do this he must get back to Paris, and could not dawdle away precious hours in discussing the principles of poetry with Graham Vane.
There was only one thing, apart from “the begging-hat,” in which Savarin dissented from his wife.—She suggested his starting a new journal in conjunction with Gustave Rameau, upon whose genius and the expectations to be formed from it (here she was tacitly thinking of Isaura wedded to Rameau, and more than a Malibran on the stage) she insisted vehemently. Savarin did not thus estimate Gustave Rameau, thought him a clever, promising young writer in a very bad school of writing, who might do well some day or other. But that a Rameau could help a Savarin to make a fortune! No; at that idea he opened his eyes, patted his wife’s shoulder, and called her “enfant.”
Graham’s letter was from M. Renard, and ran thus:—
MONSIEUR,—I had the honour to call at your apartment this morning,
and I write this line to the address given to me by your concierge
to say that I have been fortunate enough to ascertain that the
relation of the missing lady is now at Paris. I shall hold myself
in readiness to attend your summons. Deign to accept, Monsieur, the
assurance of my profound consideration.
J. RENARD.
This communication sufficed to put Graham into very high spirits. Anything that promised success to his research seemed to deliver his thoughts from a burden and his will from a fetter. Perhaps in a few days he might frankly and honourably say to Isaura words which would justify his retaining longer, and pressing more ardently, the delicate hand which trembled in his as they took leave.