“And not only have I been sleeping,” he went on, “but I have been dreaming too.”
Mlle. Lucienne fixed upon him her great black eyes.
“Can you tell me your dream?” she asked.
He hesitated. Had he had but one minute to reflect, perhaps he would not have spoken; but he was taken unawares.
“I dreamed,” he replied, “that we were friends in the noblest and purest acceptance of that word. Intelligence, heart, will, all that I am, and all that I can,—I laid every thing at your feet. You accepted the most entire devotion, the most respectful and the most tender that man is capable of. Yes, we were friends indeed; and upon a glimpse of love, never expressed, I planned a whole future of love.” He stopped.
“Well?” she asked.
“Well, when my hopes seemed on the point of being realized, it happened that the mystery of your birth was suddenly revealed to you. You found a noble, powerful, and wealthy family. You resumed the illustrious name of which you had been robbed; your enemies were crushed; and your rights were restored to you. It was no longer Van Klopen’s hired carriage that stopped in front of the Hotel des Folies, but a carriage bearing a gorgeous coat of arms. That carriage was yours; and it came to take you to your own residence in the Faubourg St. Germain, or to your ancestral manor.”
“And yourself?” inquired the girl.
Maxence repressed one of those nervous spasms which frequently break out in tears, and, with a gloomy look,
“I,” he answered, “standing on the edge of the pavement, I waited for a word or a look from you. You had forgotten my very existence. Your coachman whipped his horses; they started at a gallop; and soon I lost sight of you. And then a voice, the inexorable voice of fate, cried to me, ‘Never more shalt thou see her!’”