“The King is dead. Long live the King! And the lilies will bloom again!”
“They will bloom again,” repeated Aunt Deen, with conviction.
His public life checked, father was evidently transferring his ambition to our future: he was fulfilling himself in us. I alone withdrew myself from his solicitude, my suspicions having been aroused by Martinod’s insinuations. It was not difficult for me to accumulate causes of vexation. Thus I refused to consider my departure—that departure which was my own doing—as any less important than that of Bernard for the colonies, Stephen for the Seminary, or Mélanie for the convent in the rue du Bac where the Sisters of Charity pass the time of their novitiate. Mélanie’s going away especially wronged me, because it coincided with my own. The people who came to visit my mother on account of my sister’s “holocaust” as Mlle Tapinois called it, exasperated me; they never alluded to me, no one condoled with my parents for losing me, no one noticed me, and yet I was going away, too. Even grandfather made not the slightest effort to keep me at home—nor so much as expressed any regret.
The day of separation came, a grey, rainy day, in harmony with the sadness that hung over the house. The laughing Louise followed, weeping, every step of Mélanie, who clung closely to mother. Every one said insignificant nothings—no one had any appropriate words, and the time was slipping away. We must start for the station. We had begun to think of it long before the time, and mother added to her other anxieties her fear that we should be too late.
Neither grandfather nor Aunt Deen was to be of the escorting party. The former dreaded emotional exhibitions, and Aunt Deen excused herself to Mélanie; she simply could not weep silently, and she preferred to remain in solitude where she could give way to her grief without making a disturbance; having said which she began loudly to bewail herself.
I went up to the tower chamber with my sister.
“Till we meet again, grandfather,” murmured Mélanie.
“Adieu, rather, little girl.”
“No, grandfather; till we meet again in heaven, where we are all going.”
He made a vague gesture which said only too plainly, “I won’t spoil your illusions,” adding,