It would make her father so very, very happy, she said, for he had often regretted my absence, and had never seemed so cheerful since I had been away. Often, too, she told me, he had blamed himself for advising me to accept the post I bad taken, and which he declared was unworthy of my merits; and she added many another little trait from which she herself had divined, and which led me to believe also, that Monsieur de Villardin had long been anxious for my return. Neither Laura nor myself, however, did anything to hasten our walk to the château, from which we were nearly a mile distant. The scene was so sweet and calm, and the evening so warm and fine, that it might well invite us to tarry: but there was a sensation of delight in our first conversation after so long a separation, which we were unwilling to cut short, and a feeling of happiness, too, in the almost unwitnessed enjoyment of each other's society, which, as it might be long ere the same pleasure was renewed, we were both glad to prolong.
At length, however, the purple hues that began to spread over the sky warned us that we must bend our steps homeward; and Lise, though she had no small touch of romance in her nature, declared that Monsieur would be anxious if Mademoiselle did not return. Laura rose, and, leaning on my arm, took the way along the river, whose glossy bosom was reflecting, bright but softened, the trees, and the banks, and the changing sky above. Our eyes now met, and now rested on the waters; our conversation flew from subject to subject, like a butterfly in a flower-garden,--now poured on uninterrupted, now dropped altogether, and gave place to thought. She told me again and again how glad my return would make every one in the château, leaving me to include herself in the number; and I thought how beautiful she had grown, and remembered how dear and amiable she always had been. At length, the grey turrets and slated roofs of the château rose over the nearest trees; and one of the sweetest and the happiest walks ended that ever I enjoyed through life.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
As my negotiations with Monsieur le Tellier concerning the resignation of the governorship had been carried on too rapidly to admit of my writing to Monsieur de Villardin by any of the ordinary couriers, my arrival at the Prés Vallée was unexpected; and when, from the windows of the library, he beheld his daughter leaning on the arm of a young cavalier, whose face he could not distinguish in the grey of the evening as we crossed the terrace, his surprise was so great that he came out to the steps of the château to meet us. His pleasure appeared hardly less than his astonishment when he recognised me; and Lise having entered the house, the tidings soon spread through the household; so that, while Monsieur de Villardin was giving me a glad welcome, I had my little page Clement de la Marke, old Jerome Laborde, and half a dozen of the ancient domestics, turned out upon the terrace to greet my arrival, not knowing that Monsieur de Villardin himself had come forth to do me that honour.
The Duke smiled when he saw them; and, still holding my hand, which he had taken at our first meeting, he led me in, saying,--"You see what a favourite you are, my dear boy: but I will have my turn now; and, indeed, I am almost jealous of Laura, for having forestalled me in giving you welcome."
His manner was that of an affectionate father receiving a well-beloved son after a long absence; and as, notwithstanding the propensity of human nature to presume upon kindness, I never entirely forgot that I had been a friendless orphan, destitute and lonely, it may be easily imagined what feelings such tenderness inspired. When we had entered the library, Monsieur de Villardin seated himself at the table, with Laura by his side, and with his hand leaning on her shoulder; and they both gazed upon me so intently, as I sat opposite to them, as almost to make me smile.
"Well, well," said Monsieur de Villardin, at length, "you are not much changed since I saw you; though a good deal, I dare say, in the eyes of Laura."
Mademoiselle de Villardin, however, declared that I was not changed in the least; and, indeed, would fain have persuaded her father that I was exactly the same in appearance as when I had saved her from drowning at Dumont, some eight or nine years before.
"It has come upon you gradually, Laura," replied her father; "but now, tell me, De Juvigny, how came you here, and in whose hands have you left your government?"
I explained to him the whole particulars; which, as he well knew the grasping spirit of Mazarin, did not at all surprise him: nor did the arrangement, I believe, displease him at heart; for, after a comment or two on the injustice of the proceeding, and a promise to use his influence in order to obtain for me something equivalent to that which I had lost, he added,--"But I will take care that it shall be nothing that will separate us again; for your absence has been a loss to me which I scarcely thought anything could now prove, at least in such a degree. That I should feel it deeply, however, is not at all astonishing; for I think, De Juvigny, it is now between nine and ten years since first we met; and, during that time, we have never before been separated for many months, except when you were in prison at Stenay. I think, too, that during that time, you have accumulated upon my head more obligations than ever one man before conferred upon another. You have been my confidant, my adviser, my friend, and my constant companion; so that I may well feel your absence as a loss which the society of even my dear child can scarcely compensate."