But the young ladies went up to Beaurepaire in the other carriage, for Josephine wished to avoid the gaze of the town, and get home and be quiet. The driver went very fast. He had drunk the bride’s health at the mayor’s, item the bridegroom’s, the bridesmaid’s, the mayor’s, etc., and “a spur in the head is worth two in the heel,” says the proverb. The sisters leaned back on the soft cushions, and enjoyed the smooth and rapid motion once so familiar to them, so rare of late.
Then Rose took her sister gently to task for having offered to go to Egypt. She had forgotten her poor sister.
“No, love,” replied Josephine, “did you not see I dared not look towards you? I love you better than all the world; but this was my duty. I was his wife: I had no longer a feeble inclination and a feeble disinclination to decide between, but right on one side, wrong on the other.”
“Oh! I know where your ladyship’s strength lies: my force is—in—my inclinations.”
“Yes, Rose,” continued Josephine thoughtfully, “duty is a great comfort: it is so tangible; it is something to lay hold of for life or death; a strong tower for the weak but well disposed.”
Rose assented, and they were silent a minute; and when she spoke again it was to own she loved a carriage. “How fast we glide! Now lean back with me, and take my hand, and as we glide shut your eyes and think: whisper me all your feelings, every one of them.”
“Well, then,” said Josephine, half closing her eyes, “in the first place I feel a great calm, a heavenly calm. My fate is decided. No more suspense. My duties are clear. I have a husband I am proud of. There is no perfidy with him, no deceit, no disingenuousness, no shade. He is a human sun. He will make me a better, truer woman, and I him a happier man. Yes, is it not nice to think that great and strong as he is I can teach him a happiness he knows not as yet?” And she smiled with the sense of her delicate power, but said no more; for she was not the one to talk much about herself. But Rose pressed her. “Yes, go on, dear,” she said, “I seem to see your pretty little thoughts rising out of your heart like a bubbling fountain: go on.”
Thus encouraged, Josephine thought on aloud, “And then, gratitude!” said she. “I have heard it said, or read it somewhere, that gratitude is a burden: I cannot understand that sentiment; why, to me gratitude is a delight, gratitude is a passion. It is the warmest of all the tender feelings I have for dear Monsieur Raynal. I feel it glow here, in my bosom. I think I shall love him as I ought long before he comes back.”
“BEFORE?”
“Yes,” murmured Josephine, her eyes still half closed. “His virtues will always be present to me. His little faults of manner will not be in sight. Good Raynal! The image of those great qualities I revere so, perhaps because I fail in them myself, will be before my mind; and ere he comes home I shall love him dearly. I’ll tell you one reason why I wished to go home at once was—no—you must guess.”