“I ought not to leave you ignorant that I am here,” he said.
Mademoiselle des Touches showed the utmost fear; a sudden flush colored her impassible face with tints of fire. During this strange scene she was more beautiful than at any other moment of her life.
“We thought you gone, Calyste,” said Claude. “But this involuntary discretion on both sides will do no harm; perhaps, indeed, you may be more at your ease at Les Touches by knowing Felicite as she is. Her silence shows me I am not mistaken as to the part she meant me to play. As I told you before, she loves you, but it is for yourself, not for herself,—a sentiment that few women are able to conceive and practise; few among them know the voluptuous pleasure of sufferings born of longing,—that is one of the magnificent passions reserved for man. But she is in some sense a man,” he added, sardonically. “Your love for Beatrix will make her suffer and make her happy too.”
Tears were in the eyes of Mademoiselle des Touches, who was unable to look either at the terrible Vignon or the ingenuous Calyste. She was frightened at being understood; she had supposed it impossible for a man, however keen his perception, to perceive a delicacy so self-immolating, a heroism so lofty as her own. Her evident humiliation at this unveiling of her grandeur made Calyste share the emotion of the woman he had held so high, and now beheld so stricken down. He threw himself, from an irresistible impulse, at her feet, and kissed her hands, laying his face, covered with tears, upon them.
“Claude,” she said, “do not abandon me, or what will become of me?”
“What have you to fear?” replied the critic. “Calyste has fallen in love at first sight with the marquise; you cannot find a better barrier between you than that. This passion of his is worth more to you than I. Yesterday there might have been some danger for you and for him; to-day you can take a maternal interest in him,” he said, with a mocking smile, “and be proud of his triumphs.”
Mademoiselle des Touches looked at Calyste, who had raised his head abruptly at these words. Claude Vignon enjoyed, for his sole vengeance, the sight of their confusion.
“You yourself have driven him to Madame de Rochefide,” continued Claude, “and he is now under the spell. You have dug your own grave. Had you confided in me, you would have escaped the sufferings that await you.”
“Sufferings!” cried Camille Maupin, taking Calyste’s head in her hands, and kissing his hair, on which her tears fell plentifully. “No, Calyste; forget what you have heard; I count for nothing in all this.”
She rose and stood erect before the two men, subduing both with the lightning of her eyes, from which her soul shone out.