When Iris proposed to Madame de Hansfeld to reply for her to M. de Brévannes on the subject of the interview which was to take place in the Jardin des Plantes, she not only prevented the princess from committing an imprudent act, but, unknown to her mistress, made her an accomplice in a most diabolical project.
Our readers, no doubt, remember a black book of which Iris had spoken to M. de Brévannes, and in which she told him the princess wrote her most secret thoughts almost every day.
Nothing could be more false. Paula had never possessed such a book; but it was important to the plots of Iris that M. de Brévannes should credit the falsehood, and his belief would be confirmed when he recognised, in this book, writing similar to that of the note which Madame de Hansfeld had now sent to him.
The profound dissimulation, the bold and mischievous plotting of Iris may excite some astonishment; and it may be, perhaps, equally difficult to comprehend her savage affection, her intense jealousy which had almost become ferocious monomania.
Unfortunately, the main facts of this tale, the principal features in Iris's character, are perfectly true.
There has been known a young girl, with passions so ardent, so implacable, which she has combined, concentrated in the blind attachment she had for her benefactress, a singular affection which approached filial veneration in its religious devotion, maternal tenderness in its charming and pure familiarity, and love in its vindictive jealousy.
If, in the sequel of this tale, there is detected in Iris a great power of imagination joined to an inventive mind, full of stratagem, adroit, and bold,—if any of her combinations seem worked out with a perfidy and skill most rare in a girl of her age, we repeat that solitude had singularly developed her natural faculties, incessantly devoted to one end, and that, compelled to act alone and beneath the shade of the deepest dissimulation, she held every means good that was likely to bring her to the one concentrated object of her desires,—
To isolate her mistress from every affection.
To create, as it were, a void around her, and become to her the more necessary as every other attachment failed her.
This last desire of Iris had hitherto been unsatisfied.