Pierre had been waiting some time.
The abbess sat alone after Euphrosyne was gone, contemplating, not the lamp, though her eyes were fixed upon it, but the force of the filial principle in this lonely girl—a force which had constrained her to open the aching wound in her own heart to a mere child. She sat, till called by the hour to prayer, pondering the question how it is that relations designed for duty and peace become the occasions of the bitterest sin and suffering. The mystery was in no degree cleared up when she was called to prayer—which, however, has the blessed power of solving all painful mysteries for the hour.
Chapter Twenty One.
Perplexity Solved.
“What is the matter, child? What makes you look so merry?” asked Monsieur Revel, when his eyes opened upon Euphrosyne the next morning.
“Nothing has happened, grandpapa. The only thing is, that I like to do what you wish; and I always will, as long as you live. I will go to the convent to-day. You can send for me at any time when you want me, you know. I am sure the abbess will let me come whenever you send Pierre for me.”
“Well, well—do not be in such a hurry. I do not want you to go to-day. Why should you be in such a hurry?”
When the breeze had come to refresh him, and he had had his coffee, Monsieur Revel felt more complaisant, and explained what he meant by there being no hurry. Euphrosyne should not leave him till to-morrow; and this day should be spent as she pleased. Whatever she liked to ask to-day should be granted. This indulgence was promised under a tolerable certainty that she would ask nothing unreasonable: that she would not propose a dinner-party of dark-complexioned guests, for instance. There might also be an expectation of what it would be that she would choose. M. Revel was conscious that he did not visit his estate of Le Bosquet, in the plain of Limbé, so often as Euphrosyne would have liked, or as he himself knew to be good for his agent, the cultivators, and his heiress. He was aware that if he could have shown any satisfaction in the present order of affairs, any good-will towards the working of the new system, there might have been a chance of old stories dying away—of old grievances being forgotten by the cultivators, in his present acquiescence in their freedom. He could not order the carriage, and say he was going to Le Bosquet; but he had just courage enough to set Euphrosyne free to ask to go. It turned out exactly as he expected.