Colonel von Tresten was the friend of his attachment to the baroness; a friend of both, and a warm one. Men coming into contact with Alvan took their shape of friend or enemy sharply, for he was friend or enemy of no dubious feature, devoted to them he loved, and a battery on them he opposed. The colonel had been the confidant of the baroness’s grief over this love-passion of Alvan’s, and her resignation. He shared her doubts of Clotilde’s nobility of character: the reports were not favourable to the young lady. But the baroness and he were of one opinion, that Alvan in love was not likely to be governable by prudent counsel. He dropped a word of the whispers of Clotilde’s volatility.
Alvan nodded his perfect assent. ‘She is that, she is anything you like; you cannot exaggerate her for good or evil. She is matchless, colour her as you please.’ Adopting the tone of argument, he said: ‘She writes that letter. Well? It is her writing, and the moment, I am sure of it as hers, I would not have it unwritten. I love it!’ He looked maddish with his love of the horrible thing, and resumed soberly: ‘The point is, that she has the charm for me. She is plastic in my hands. Other men would waste the treasure. I make of her what I will, and she knows it, and knows that she hangs on me to flourish worthily. I breathe the very soul of the woman into her. As for that letter of hers—’ it burnt him this time to speak of the letter: ‘she may write and write! She’s weak, thin, a reed; she—let her be! Say of her when she plays beast—she is absent from Alvan! I can forgive. The letter’s nothing; it means nothing—except “Thou fool, Alvan, to let me go.” Yes, that! Her people are acting tyrant with her—as legally they have no right to do in this country, and I shall prove it to them. When I have gained admission to her—and I soon shall: it can’t be refused: I am off to the head of her father’s office to-morrow, and I have only to represent the state of affairs to the Minister in my language to obtain his authority to demand admission to her:—then, friend, you will see! I lift my finger, and you will see! At my request she went back to her mother. I have but to beckon.’
He had cooled to the happy assurance of his authority over her, all the giants of his system being well in action, and when that is the case with a big nature it is at rest, or such is the condition of repose granted it in life.
On the morrow he was off to batter at doors which would have expected rather the summons of an armed mob at his heels than the strange cry of the Radical man maltreated by love.
CHAPTER XI
The story of Clotilde’s departure from the city, like that of Alvan’s, communicated to her by her maid, was an anticipation of the truth, disseminated by her parents. She was removed when the swarm of spies and secret letter-bearers were attaining a position of dignity through the rumour of legal gentlemen about to direct the movements of the besieging army.
A stir seemed to her to prognosticate a rescue and she went not unwillingly. To be in motion, to see roadside faces, pricked her senses with some hope. She had gained the peace she needed, and in that state her heart began to be agitated by a fresh awakening, luxurious at first rather than troublesome. She had sunk so low that the light of Alvan seemed too distant for a positive expectation of him; but few approached her whom she did not fancy under strange disguises: the gentlemen were servants, the blouses were gentlemen; she looked wistfully at old women bearing baskets, for the forbidden fruit to peep out in the form of an envelope. All passed her blankly, noticing her eyes.
The journey was short; she was taken to a place a little beyond the head of the lake, and there, though she had liberty to breathe the air, fast fixed within the walls of a daily sameness that became gradually the hum of voices accusing Alvan of one in excess of the many sins laid against him by his enemies. Was he not possibly an empty pretender to power—a mere great talker?
Her bit of liberty increased her chafing at the deadly monotony of this existence, and envenomed the accusation by seeming to push her forth quite half way to meet him, if he would but come or show sign! She impetuously vindicated him from the charge of crediting the sincerity of any words she might have committed to paper at the despotic dictation of her father. Oh, no; Alvan could not be guilty of such folly as that; he could not; it would be to suppose him unacquainted with her, ignorant of the nature of women. He would know that she wrote the words—why? She could not perfectly recollect how she had come to write them, and found it easier to extinguish the act of having written them at all, which was done by the angry recurrence to his failure to intervene now when the drama cried for his godlike appearance. Perhaps he was really unacquainted with her thought her stronger than she was! The idea reflected a shadow on his intelligence. She was not in a situation that could bear of her blaming herself.