Emile had no sooner pronounced that name, upon which he relied as a magic charm, than he saw his host's expression change in an alarming manner. The knobs of his thin, sallow cheeks flushed purple; his eyes started from their sockets; his arms and legs twitched convulsively. He tried to speak and stammered unintelligible words. At last he succeeded in saying this:
"Enough, monsieur, that is enough, too much. Never be so misguided as to mention that demoiselle's name to me!"
And, leaving the cliff in the park, where this conversation took place, he entered the chalet and closed the door violently behind him.
XIX
THE PORTRAIT
Emile did not return to Boisguilbault for several days. His sorrow was deep-seated. At first he was annoyed and angry at the marquis's distressing and incomprehensible caprice. But soon, after reflecting upon that strange episode, he conceived an immense pity for that diseased mind, which, amid ideas so lucid and instincts so affectionate, nourished a deplorable sort of mania, paroxysms of hatred or resentment closely akin to mental alienation.
That was the only explanation that the young man could conceive of the violent effect produced on his venerable friend by the adored name of Gilberte. He was so dismayed by the discovery, that he no longer felt the courage to pursue so hopeless an undertaking and determined to inform Mademoiselle frankly of his failure.
He bent his steps toward the ruins one evening, depressed by his discomfiture, and for the first time he was sad on his arrival. But love is a magician who overturns all our anticipations by unexpected favors or cruelties.
Gilberte was alone. To be sure, Janille was not far away; but as she left the house to find one of her goats, and as Gilberte did not know in what direction she had gone, so that they could not go to meet her, they had a plausible excuse for indulging in a tête-à-tête. Gilberte also seemed a little sad. She would have been sorely embarrassed to say why, or how it happened that, after passing five minutes with Emile, she entirely forgot that she had had any gloomy thoughts prior to his arrival.
They had dined at Châteaubrun long before: according to a custom of many years' standing, they ate at the same hours as the peasants, that is to say, in the morning, at noon, and after the day's work—a perfectly logical arrangement for those who do not turn night into day.