"Dear Clémence, dear child," said the attendant, "I will ever do my best to soothe and comfort you; and what little assistance I can give shall be given; but I have trusted and I have hoped for many days--now both from what I have seen and what I have heard--that there was a stronger hand than that of a weak old woman soon about to be plighted to support and defend you for life."
"Who do you mean?" exclaimed Clémence eagerly; "who are you speaking of, Maria?"
"Can you not divine?" demanded the old lady; "can you not divine that I mean him that we saw in the forest--him, who seemed to my old eyes to wed you then, with the ring that your mother gave you, when she told you never to part with it to any one but to the man who was to place it again on your finger as your husband."
"Good heaven!" exclaimed Clémence, "I never thought of that! I am his wife then, Maria--at least I shall ever consider myself such."
"But will he consider you so too?" demanded the attendant; "and do you love him enough to consider him so, dear child? I have never seen you love any one yet, and I only began to hope that you would love him when I saw your colour change as often as his name was mentioned."
"I have said I would tell you all, Maria," replied Clémence, "and I will tell you all. I never have loved any one before; and how could I, surrounded as I have been by the empty, and the vain, and the vicious,--by a crowd so full of vices, and so barren of virtues, that a man thought himself superior to the whole world, if he had but one good quality to recommend him: and what were the qualities on which they piqued themselves? If a man had wit, he thought himself a match for an empress; if he had courage, though that, to say the truth, was the most general quality, he felt himself privileged to be a libertine, and a gamester, and an atheist; and, instead of feeling shame, he gloried in his faults. How could I love any of such men? How could I esteem them--the first step to love? I have but heard one instance of true affection in the court of France--that of poor Conti to the King's daughter; and I never fancied myself such a paragon as to be the second woman that could raise such attachment. Nothing less, however, would satisfy me, and therefore I determined to shape my course accordingly. I resolved to let the crowd that chose it follow, and flatter, and affect to worship, as much as ever they so pleased. It was their doing, not mine. I mean not to say that it did not please and amuse me: I mean not to say that I did not feel some sort of satisfaction--which I now see was wrong to feel--in using as slaves, in ordering here and there, in trampling upon and mortifying a set of beings that I contemned and despised, and that valued me alone for gifts which I valued not myself. Had there been one man amongst them that at all deserved me--that gave one thought to my mind or to my heart, rather than to my beauty or my fortune--he would have hated me for the manner in which I treated him and others; and I might have learned to love him, even while he learned to contemn me. Such was not the case, however, for there was not one that did so. Had I declared my determination of never marrying, to be the slave of a being I despised, they would soon have put me in a convent, or at least have tried to do so; and I feared they might. Therefore it was I went on upon the same plan, sitting like a waxen virgin in a shrine, letting adorers come and worship as much as they pleased, and taking notice of none. There is not one of them that can say that I ever gave him aught but a cutting speech, or an expression of my contempt It is now several years ago, but you must remember it well, when we were first with the Duke at Ruffigny."
"Oh, I remember it well," replied the attendant, "and the hunting, and your laying down the bridle like a wild careless girl, as you then were, and the horse running away with you, and this very Count de Morseiul saving you by stopping it Ay, I remember it all well, and you told me how gallant and handsome he looked, and all he had said; and I laughed, and told you you were in love with him."
"I was not in love," replied Clémence, with the colour slightly deepening in her cheek, "I was not in love; but I might soon have been so even then. I thought a great deal about him; I was very young, had mixed not at all with the world, and he was certainly at that time, in personal appearance, what might well realise the dream of a young and enthusiastic imagination.--He is older and graver now," she added, musing, "and time has made a change on him; but yet I scarcely think he is less handsome. However, I thought of him a good deal then, especially after I had met him the second time, and discovered who he was: and I thought of him often afterwards. Wherever there was any gallant action done, I was sure to listen eagerly, expecting to hear his name.--And how often did I hear it, Maria! Not a campaign passed but some new praises fell upon the Count de Morseiul. He had defended this post like some ancient hero, against whole legions of the enemy. He had thrown himself into that small fort, which was considered untenable, and held an army at bay for weeks. He had been the first to plant his foot on the breach; he had been the last in the rear upon a retreat. The peasant's cottage, the citizen's fire-side, owed their safety to him; and the ministers of another religion than his own had found shelter and protection beneath his sword. I know not how it was, but when all these tales were told me, his image always rose up before me as I had seen him, and I pictured him in every action. I could see him leading the charging squadrons. I could see him standing in the deadly breach. I could see the women and the children, and the conquered and the wounded, clinging to his knees, and could see him saving them. I did not love him, Maria, but I thought of him a great deal more than of any one else in all the world. Well, then, after some years, came the last great service that he rendered us, not many weeks ago, and was not his demeanour then, Maria--was not his whole air and conduct in the midst of danger to himself and others--the peremptory demand of our liberation--the restoration of the ring I valued--the easy unshaken courtesy in a moment of agitation and risk,--was it not all noble, all chivalrous, all such as a woman's imagination might well dwell upon?"
"It was, indeed," replied Maria, "and ever since then I have thought that you loved him."
"In the mean time," continued Clémence, "in the mean time I had also become sadly spoilt. I had grown capricious, and vain, and haughty, by indulging such feelings for several years, in pursuit of my own system; and when the Count appeared at Poitiers, I do not know that I was inclined to treat him well. Not that I would ever have behaved to him as I did to others; but I scarcely knew how to behave better. I believed myself privileged to say and do any thing I thought right, to exact any thing, nay, to command any thing. I was surprised when I found he took no notice of me; I was mortified perhaps; I determined, if ever I made him happy at last, to punish him for his first indifference,--to punish him, how think you? To make him love me, to make him doubtful of whether I loved him, and to make him figure in the train of those whom I myself despised. But, oh, Maria, I soon found that I could not accomplish what I sought. There was a power, a command in his nature that overawed, that commanded me. Instead of teaching him to love me, and making him learn to doubt that I loved him, I soon found that it was I that loved, and learned to doubt that he loved me. Then came restlessness and disquietude. From time to time I saw--I felt that he loved me, and then again I doubted, and strove to make him show it more clearly, by the very means best calculated to make him crush it altogether. I affected to listen to the frivolous and the vain, to smile upon the beings I despised, to assume indifference towards the only one I loved. Thus it went on till the last day of his stay, when he refused to accompany us on our hunting party, but left me with a promise to join us if he could. I was disappointed, mortified. I doubted if he would keep his promise. I doubted whether he had any inclination to do so, and I strove to forget, in the excitement of the chase, the bitterness of that which I suffered. Suddenly, however, I caught a glance of him riding down towards us. He came up to my side, he rode on by me, he attended to me, he spoke to me alone; there was a grace, and a dignity, and a glory about his person that was new and strange; he seemed as if some new inspiration had come upon him. On every subject that we spoke of he poured forth his soul in words of fire. His eyes and his countenance beamed with living light, such as I had never before beheld; every thing vanished from my eyes and thoughts but him; every thing seemed small and insignificant and to bow before him; the very fiery charger that he rode seemed to obey, with scarcely a sign or indication of his will. The cavaliers around looked but like his attendants, and I--I Maria--proud, and haughty, and vain as I had encouraged myself to be--I felt that I was in the presence of my master, and that, there, beside me, was the only man on earth that I could willingly and implicitly obey--I felt subdued, but not depressed--I felt, perhaps, as a woman ought to feel towards a man she loves, that I was competent to be his companion and his friend, to share his thoughts, to respond to all his feelings, to enter into his views and opinions, to meet him, in short, with a mind yielding, but scarcely to be called inferior, different in quality, but harmonious in love and thought. I felt that he was one who would never wish me to be a slave; but one that I should be prompt and ready to bend to and obey. Can I tell you, Maria, all the agony that took possession of my heart when I found that the whole bright scene was to pass away like a dream? Since then many a painful thing has happened. I have wrung my heart, I have embittered my repose by fancying that I have loved, where I was not loved in return, that I have been the person to seek, and he to despise me. But this day, this day, Maria, has come an explanation. He has told me that he loves me, he has told me that he has loved me long; he has taken away that shame, he has given me that comfort. We both foresee many difficulties, pangs, and anxieties; but, alas! Maria, I see plainly, not only that he discovers in the future far more difficulties, and dangers, and obstacles between us than I myself perceive, but also that he disapproves of much of my conduct--that doubts and apprehensions mingle with his love--that it is a thing which he has striven against, not from his apprehension of difficulties, but from his doubts of me and of my nature; that love has mastered him for a time; but still has not subdued him altogether. It is a bitter and a sad thing," she added, placing her hands over her eyes.