The old man took his leave, staggering like a drunken man. In the street he muttered to himself, with gleaming eyes and vehement gestures. The people he met took him for an escaped lunatic.
He followed the wall of the Estrelle garden, instinctively turning to see if Julien was still working and if his lily was uninjured. Suddenly it occurred to him that Madame d'Ancourt might ruin everything if she should reveal to Madame d'Estrelle the name of the suitor she had described. Julie evidently had no suspicion; evidently she saw no ulterior purpose behind her old neighbor's attachment. There was no reason why she should not come around gradually to the point of accepting him for a husband as she had more experience of his munificence; but he had undertaken to progress too rapidly; he had come within an ace of spoiling everything. As the baroness was not opposed to his success, he must hasten to her before thinking of anything else, tell her how matters had progressed and enjoin silence upon her. He jumped into an empty cab which happened to pass, and ordered the cabman to take him to the hôtel d'Ancourt.
Julie was profoundly moved; like every generous heart which has set on foot and carried through a good action, she was happy in absolute forgetfulness of self. That forgetfulness of self was so complete that she threw over her shoulders a light cape of violet silk and ran to the pavilion, impatient to announce the great news to Madame André, and to make her promise to chaperone her at the banquet at the hôtel de Melcy. She was thinking no more of Julien than if he had never existed, or, if she did think of him, she had no conception of the danger she ran in meeting him. That danger, of the gravity of which she was entirely ignorant, seemed to her a trifle in comparison with the great event which led her to go to his mother. Moreover, she was alone. No one in her salon, no one in the garden. Would the roses be scandalized by her action, would the nightingales cry out over the walls that Madame d'Estrelle was going into a house where there might be a young man whom she had never seen?
At that moment Julien had no leisure to watch for Julie's approach. He must paint rapidly and without distraction. The lily could not promise not to fade and curl at the edges before the last stroke of the brush. Madame Thierry was in her room with Marcel, who, after exchanging a few words with Julien, was attempting to confess and convince his aunt by lecturing her in private, as the subject of his homily had thus far been kept from the young artist, and it was thought best to keep him in ignorance of it.
Madame d'Estrelle tapped gently at the door of the pavilion. A huge dray laden with stone was passing along the street at that moment. The creaking of the wheels, the shouts of the drayman and the cracking of his whip drowned the faint sound of her knocking. Being most anxious to see Madame Thierry before she was informed of what had happened, and offended by some gruff message from the eccentric Antoine, Madame d'Estrelle resolutely opened the outer door, then a second one, and found herself in Julien's studio, face to face with him; for his model was placed in the light that shone through the window upon that door, and Julie appeared to the artist in a flood of radiance, as if she had come to him in a sunbeam.
He was so unprepared for that vision that he nearly fell senseless. All his blood rushed to his heart and his face turned whiter than Monsieur Antoine's lily. He could neither speak nor bow; he stood rooted to the floor, palette in hand, with staring eyes and as if actually turned to stone.
What analogous process was taking place in the lovely countess's heart and senses? It is certain that at the sight of that wonderfully beautiful young man, of a type of beauty wherein nobility of outline was surpassed only by intelligence of expression, she had a sort of instinctive feeling of respect; for he was not really a stranger to her. She knew the whole story of his upright, noble labor, his persistence in working earnestly and regularly, his filial love, his generous aspirations, the esteem and affection which he deserved, and which nobody who knew him could deny him. It may be that she had sometimes been curious to see him, but if so she had forbidden herself to give way to curiosity, whether because it seemed childish to her, or because she had a vague presentiment of some danger to herself.
Let us not attempt to dissect her feelings farther. She was apparently all ready for the invasion of the sentiment which was to decide her fate. She received a terrible shock; the confusion which paralyzed Julien took complete possession of her, and for a moment she was as silent and motionless as he.
If anyone had seen that beautiful couple, fashioned by the hands of God, in some region inaccessible to social prejudices, coming together under the natural and awe-inspiring conditions of the all-governing logic, he would have said unhesitatingly that logic, born of God, had made that magnificent man for that fascinating woman, and that sensible, genuine woman for that high-spirited and earnest man. All was charm and gentleness in Julie's grace; all was passion and unselfishness in Julien's beauty. As at last their glances met in the bright radiance of that May sun, redolent with the fragrance of nature's new light, each one uttered mentally, as it were an outcry of irresistible love, the names which chance had given them—Julie, Julien—as if they were destined to have but one name between them.
Thus it required a mighty effort of will for them to remember the distance that separated them socially.