That inexplicable sentence, and the reticence which had preceded it, her refusal to admit that she loved the marquis, that solemn moment of her life to which she had referred, that terrible shock which she said that she had had during the evening, that important confidential communication which she was to make the next day—did all of these relate to Michel?
When he remembered the inexplicable glance she had bestowed upon him when she saw him for the first time before the opening of the ball, he was tempted to give way to the most insane presumptions. It is true that, while she was talking with the marquis, there had been a moment when her dreamy eyes had shone with no less extraordinary brilliancy; but it seemed to Michel that their expression was not the same as when they had looked into his. Glance for glance, he preferred the one that had fallen to him.
Who could describe the marvellous and gorgeous romances which that rash youth's brain developed during the next quarter of an hour? They were all built upon the same foundation, the unheard-of genius of a young artist who was ignorant of his own powers, and who had suddenly revealed them in a brilliant and extensive piece of decorative work. The lovely princess for whom that masterly work was undertaken had come often, by stealth, to observe its progress, and during the week that the artist had spent in the enchanted palace, taking his siesta and eating at certain hours, in certain mysterious rooms, this invisible fairy had come to gaze upon him, sometimes from behind a curtain, sometimes from a rose-window in the wall. She had been smitten with love for his person or with admiration for his talents—at any rate with an infatuation of some sort for him; and that sentiment was so intense that she could not summon the necessary self-possession to manifest it by words. Her glance had revealed everything to him in spite of herself; and how should he, trembling and bewildered as he was, find a way to tell her that he had understood her?
He had reached that point when the Marquis della Serra, the princess's adorer, suddenly reappeared before him and surprised him holding in his hands the fan the princess had left on the divan, and gazing at it without seeing it.
"I beg your pardon, my dear child," said the marquis, saluting him with charming courtesy, "but I am compelled to deprive you of that object, for which a lady has sent me. But if the Chinese pictures on this fan interest you, I can place at your disposal a collection of interesting vases and images from which you will be at liberty to choose."
"You are much too kind, signor marquis," replied Michel, offended by an air of benevolence in which he fancied that he could detect an impertinent assumption of superiority; "the fan does not interest me, and Chinese painting is not to my taste."
The marquis perceived Michel's irritation, and rejoined with a smile:
"Presumably you have seen only coarse specimens of the art of that people; but there are colored drawings, which, despite the elementary simplicity of the process, are worthy to be compared with the Etruscan vases in purity of outline and delightful artlessness of subjects. I shall be happy to show you those that I own. It is a small pleasure which I should be glad to afford you, but which would by no means pay my debt to you, for I have taken very great pleasure in looking at your paintings."
The marquis's tone was so sincere, and his face wore such an unmistakable expression of kindliness, that Michel, attacked on his weak side, could not refrain from saying ingenuously what he felt.
"I fear," he said, "that your lordship desires to encourage me by more indulgence than I deserve; for I cannot suppose that you would stoop to make sport of a young artist at the outset of his career."