“I have no doubt you can, Monsieur,” I answered, rather pettishly; “for I suppose you asked him yourself; and, if you did so on my account, I must beg you will omit that proof of kindness in future, for I do not wish to see him.”
“Oh! Monsieur Gironac, for shame, you have made her very angry with your ridiculous badinage—you have made her angry, really, and I do not wonder. Who ever heard of teasing a young lady about a gentleman she has never seen, only three times, and who has never declared any preference?”
“Madame,” replied her husband, in great wrath, either real or simulated, “vous êtes une ingrate,—une,—une—words fail me, to express what I think of your enormous and unkind ingratitude. I am homme incompris, and Mademoiselle here—Mademoiselle is either une enfant, or she does not know her own mind. Shall I give the Comte Chavannes his congé, or shall I not? I shall not,—for if she be une enfant, it is fit her friends look after her; if she does not know her own mind, it is good she have some one who do!—voilà tout. Here is why I shall not go congédier monsieur le Comte. Why rather I shall request him to dine with me to-morrow, the next day, the day after. If he do not, I swear by my honour, foi de Gironac, I will dine at home again never more.”
I could not help laughing at this tirade of the kind-hearted little man, on the strength of which he patted me on the head, and said I was bonne enfant, if I were not si diablement entêtée, and bade me go to bed, and sleep myself into a better humour; a piece of advice which appeared to me so judicious, that I proceeded at once to obey it, and bidding them both a kind good-night, betook myself to my own room to ponder rather than to sleep. And, in truth, I felt that I had need of reflection, for with the return of Auguste, a tide of feelings, which had long lain dormant rather than dead within me had almost overwhelmed me; and the hardness which had its origin in the bitterness of conscious dependence, and which had gained strength from the pride of self-acquired independence, began to thaw in my heart, and to give way to milder and gentler feelings.
The thoughts of home, the desire for my country, the love for my father who, though weak and almost imbecile, had ever been kind to me in person, the craving affection for my brothers and my sisters, nay! something approaching to pity or regret for the mother who had proved herself but a step-mother towards me, all revived in increased and re-invigorated force.
By-and-bye, too, I began to feel that I should be very wretched after the parting with my beloved brother at the end of so brief a renewal of love and intimacy; to be aware of what I had scarcely felt before in the self-confidence of the position I had won—that it is a sad and lonely thing to be a sojourner in a foreign land, with no natural friends, no kind kindred on whom to rely in case of sickness or misfortune;—and, to consider, how dark and grave a thing must be solitary old age, and perhaps a solitary death-bed, far from the home of one’s youth, the friends of one’s childhood.
Then there arose another thought connected with the preceding, by that extraordinary and inexplicable chain, which seems to run through the whole mind of man, linking together things apparently as far asunder as the poles, which have, however, in reality, a kindred origin. That thought was, wherefore should my life be solitary? Why should I stand apart and alone from my race, relying on myself only, and depriving myself, for the sake of a perhaps imaginary independence, of all the endearments of social life, all the sweet ties of family?
Perhaps, the very presence of my brother had opened my eyes to the truth, that there is no such thing in the world as real independence. To realise that possession, most coveted, and most unattainable, one must be a Robinson Crusoe, alone on his desert island,—a sort of independence which no one, I should think, would practically desire to enjoy.
Before sleep came, I believe that I began to muse about Monsieur de Chavannes; but it was only to think that I did not care in the least about him, nor he about me; and that, so far as he was concerned, I had seen no cause to change my decided resolution that I would never marry. All this was, perhaps, in reality, the best of proofs that I did already care something about him, and was very likely before long to care something more; for some one has said, and he, by the way, no ordinary judge of human nature, that if he desired to win a woman’s fancy or affection, his first step would be to make her think about him—even if it were to hate him! anything before the absence of all thought, the blank void of real absolute indifference.
Indeed, I believe it is nearly true, that a woman rarely begins to think often of a man, even if it be as she fancies in dislike, but when, however she may deceive herself, she is on the verge of loving him.