Mme de Trélan looked at him mutely.
“All this, Madame,” pursued the Deputy, waving his hand to include not only the garden but the château itself, “all this, over which you exercise so wise a regency, is but a dead kingdom. You are but the guardian of a cenotaph. But imagine yourself,” he went on, warming to his trope, “imagine yourself ruling with a real authority where all is, on the contrary, alive, where every subject is your—I should say, every wish is your subject, every project laid at your feet for approval, every——”
But Valentine broke in rather ruthlessly by saying, “I cannot imagine to what kingdom you refer, Monsieur Camain.”
“You do not divine?” said he, and the smile became more marked. “You must guess—’tis your adorable woman’s modesty which dictates that reluctance! Madame . . . Marie . . . the kingdom which I invite you to enter—ah no, not to enter, for you are already enthroned there, but to sway absolutely—is at your feet this moment, is, in short, this heart!” finished M. Camain, transferring himself very neatly from the bench beside her to one bended knee, and clasping both hands to the neighbourhood of the organ he had named.
Valentine surveyed him there on the gravel with stupefaction and a spice of malicious amusement.
“Am I to understand, Monsieur le Député, that you are good enough to offer me the post recently occupied by Mlle Dufour?”
Her suitor reddened. “Good God, no, Madame! I must have expressed myself but ill if I gave you to suppose that! No, Mlle Dufour and I have parted. It is my hand, in all respect and honesty, of which I have the honour to ask your acceptance.”
“In short,” said the Duchesse, unable to resist, “vous allez vous ranger. Please get up, Citizen. I am very much honoured by your offer, but it is impossible for me to accept it.”
Her wooer kept his countenance very well. Possibly he had expected this refusal, as a further manifestation of the modesty to which he had alluded. He did get up, and, dusting the traces of the greenish gravel off the knees of his small-clothes, stood before her, rather a fine figure of a man, who probably carried off better than most the ridiculous red toga à l’antique which the members of the Conseil des Anciens had to wear at their assemblies.
“I am too sudden, perhaps, Madame?” he enquired, his head on one side. “I recognise and bow to your superior delicacy. A flower should never be plucked in a hurry. And yet, the encouragement I have received——”