"To be sure," she answered, half playfully, half seriously; "it would be a sad exchange, would it not? to give a friend for a slave. Besides, I doubt not that you have loved a thousand times before. But tell me, Count, do you think any one can love more than once?"
"From my own experience I cannot speak," replied the Count, "for I am a very stony-hearted person, but I should think that a man might."
"And woman not!" she interrupted eagerly. "Poor women! You hem us in on all sides!--But after all, perhaps, you are right," she added, after a moment's pause. "There is, there must be a difference between the love of man and the love of woman. Hers is the first fresh brightness of the heart, which never can be known again; hers is the flower which, once broken off, is succeeded by no other; hers is the intense--the deep--the all engrossing, which, when once come and gone, leaves the exhausted heart without the power of feeling such things again. With man it is different: love has not that sway over him that it has over a woman. It is not with him the only thing, the end, the object of his being. It takes possession of him but as a part, and, therefore, may be known more than once, perhaps. But, with woman, that fire once kindled must be the funeral pile of her own heart. As the ancients fabled, flowers may spring up from the ashes, but as far as real love is concerned, after the first true affection, the heart is with the dead."
She paused, and both were silent; for there was something in the words which she spoke which had a deeper effect upon Albert of Morseiul than he had imagined any thing could have produced. He struggled against himself, however, and then replied, "You took me up too quickly, lady. I was not going to say that it is impossible for woman to love twice. I do not know, I cannot judge; but I think it very possible that the ancients, to whom you have just alluded, may have intended to figure love under the image of the phœnix; and I do fully believe that many a woman may have fancied herself in love a dozen times before she was so really."
"Fancy herself in love!" exclaimed Clémence, in a tone almost indignant. "Fancy herself in love, Monsieur de Morseiul! I should think it less difficult to love twice than to fancy one's self in love at all, if one were not really so. We may perhaps fancy qualities in a person who does not truly possess them, and thus, adorned by our own imagination, may love him; but still it is not that we fancy we are in love, but are really in love with the creature of our fancy. However, I will talk about it no more. It is a thing that does not do to think of. I wonder if ever there was a man that was really worth loving."
The Count replied, but he could not get her to pursue the subject any farther; she studiously rambled away to other things; and, after speaking of some matters of minor import, darted back at once to the point at which the conversation had begun, as if the rest had been but a temporary dream, interpolated as it were between matters of more serious moment. The Count had been endeavouring to bring her back to the subject of the heart's feelings; for though he felt that it was a dangerous one--a most dangerous one--one that might well lead to words that could never be recalled, yet he longed to gain some insight into that heart which he could not but think was filled with finer things than she suffered to appear. She would not listen, however, nor be led, and replied as if she had not in the slightest degree attended to what he had been saying,--
"No, Monsieur de Morseiul, no, it is neither for health's sake nor for beauty's that I rise early and seek the morning air. I will tell you why it is. In those early and solitary hours, and those hours alone, I can have some communion with my own heart--I can converse with the being within myself--I can hold conference, too, with what I never meet alone at other hours,--nature, and nature's God. The soft air of the morning has a voice only to be heard when crowds are far away. The leaves of the green trees have tongues, drowned in the idle gabble of a foolish multitude, but heard in the calm quiet of the early morning. The fields, the brooks, the birds, the insects, all have their language, if we will listen to it; but what are fields, and brooks, and birds, and trees, and the soft air, when I am surrounded by a tribe of things as empty as the sounding brass or tinkling cymbal? Can I think of any thing more dignified than a padusoie when one baby man is whispering softly in my ear, 'The violet, Mademoiselle, suits better with your complexion than with any other that the earth ever produced, which shows that complexion's exceeding brightness;' and another tells me that the blackness of my hair would make a raven blush, or that my eyes are fit to people the heaven with stars! But it is time that I should go to my task," she continued; "so adieu, Monsieur de Morseiul. If you walk on straight to the ramparts you will find the view beautiful, and the air fresh."
Thus saying, she turned and left him, and the hint not to follow was too plain to be misunderstood. He walked on then towards the ramparts with his arms crossed upon his chest, and his eyes bent upon the ground. He did not soliloquise, for his nature was not one of those which frequently give way to such weaknesses. It was his thoughts that spoke, and spoke plainly, though silently.
"She is, indeed, lovely," he thought, "and she is, indeed, enchanting. If she would but give her heart way she is all that I pictured to myself, all that I dreamed of, though with a sad mixture of faults from which her original nature was free. But, alas! it is evident that she either does love or has loved another, and she herself confesses that she cannot love twice. Perhaps she has spoken thus plainly as a warning, and if so, how much ought I to thank her for her frankness? Besides, she is of another creed. I must dream upon this subject no more.--Yet who can be the man that has won that young heart, and then perhaps thought it not worth the wearing? Surely, surely it cannot be D'Evran, and yet she evidently likes his society better than that of any one. She seeks him rather than otherwise. How can I tell what may have passed, what may be passing between them even now? Yet she is evidently not at ease at heart, and he too told me but the other day that it was his determination never to marry. He--made for loving and being beloved!--he never marry!--It must be so; some quarrel has taken place between them, some breach which they think irremediable. How often is it when such things are the case that lovers will fancy that they are cool, and calm, and determined, and can live like friends and acquaintances, forgetting the warmer feelings that have once existed between them! Yes, it must be so," he continued, as he pondered over all the different circumstances; "it must be so, and they will soon be reconciled. I will crush these foolish feelings in my heart; I will banish all weak remembrances; and to do so effectually, I will quit this place as soon as possible, leaving Louis here, if he chooses to stay."
Thus musing, with a sad heart and bitterer feelings than he would even admit to himself, Albert de Morseiul walked on in the direction which Clémence had pointed out, and passing through various long allies, planted in the taste of that day, arrived at a spot where some steps led up to the ramparts of the town, which commanded a beautiful view over the gently undulating country round Poitiers, with more than one little river meandering through the fields around. Leaning his arms on the low breastwork, he paused and gazed over a scene on which, at any other time, he might have looked with feelings of deep interest, and noted every little mound and tree, marking, as he was wont, each light and shadow, and following each turn of the Clain or Boivre. Now, however, there was nothing but a vague vision of green and sunny things before his eyes, while the sight of the spirit was fixed intensely upon the deeper and darker things of his own heart.