"Maria, as Maria, would have said you are too good, sir, to notice the least of your servants,—too good to have come and stayed; but," she added, looking at Anastase with her most enchanting sweetness, a smile like love itself, "he will always have it that I am content he should do everything for me." I was astonished, for nothing, except the seasonable excitement, could have drawn forth such demonstration from her before the Chevalier. He was not looking at her, he looked at me vividly; I could not bear his eyes simultaneously with Maria's words, he had so allured my own, though I longed to gaze away.
"Come!" he continued, holding his hand to me, "come, Carlomein." I took his hand. He grasped me as if those elfin fingers were charged with lightning. I shook and trembled, even outwardly, but he drew me on with that convulsive pressure never heeding, and holding his head so high that the curls fell backwards from the forehead. We passed to the stage. He led me behind the stage—deserted, dim—to another door behind that, opened by waving drapery, to the garden-land. He led me in the air, round the outside of the temporary theatre, to the main front of the house, to the entrance through the hall, swiftly, silently, up the stairs into the corridor, and so to a chamber I had never known nor entered. I saw nothing that was in the room, and generally I see everything. I believe there were books; I felt there was an organ, and I heard it a long time afterwards. But I was only conscious this night that then I was with him,—shut up and closed together with his awful presence, in the travail of presentiment.
He had placed me on a seat, and he sat by me, still holding my hand; but his own was now relaxed and soft, the fingers cold, as if benumbed.
"Carlomein," he said, "I have always loved you, as you know; but I little thought it would be for this."
"How, sir? Why? I am frightened; for you look so strange and speak so strangely, and I feel as if I were going to die."
"I wish we both were! But do not be frightened. Ah! that is only excitement, my darling. You will let me call you so to-night?"
"Let you, dear, dearest sir! You have always been my darling. But I am too weak and young to be of any use to you; and that is why I wish to die."
"My child, if thou wert strong and manly, how could I confide in thee? Yet God forgive me if I show this little one too much too early!"
His eyes wore here an expression so divine, so little earthly that I turned away, still holding his hand, which I bathed in tears that fell shiveringly from my dull heart like rain from a sultry sky. It was the tone that pierced me; for I knew not what he meant, or only had a dream of perceiving how much.
"Sir, you could not tell me too much. You have taught me all I know already, and I don't intend ever to learn of anybody else."