"Did he not see early the image on Lago Maggiore, but unlike, as he said?"
"I will, then, confess it to thee, wild one," replied Julienne, "because one must not surprise thee, that I yesterday begged him to join us in our visit to the Princesse, and that he, even out of regard and dislike to all resemblances, gave me a downright refusal; but he awaits us to-morrow in the Prince's garden."
Changed, softened, with transfigured eyes, and with sinking voice, Linda said, "Does my friend love me so greatly? But I love him exceedingly too,—the pure one. To-morrow will I say to him, take my freedom, and stay forever with me. We will go from the altar, my Julienne,—thou and I and he,—to Valencia, to Isola Bella, or whithersoever he will, and stay together. Thanks, dear moon and music! How childlike the tones and the rays play with each other! Embrace me, my beloved; forgive that Linda has been naughty!" Here the storm of her heart dissolved into sweet weeping. So, in countries upon which the sun shines vertically down, is the blue sky daily transformed into thunder, tempest, and black rain, and daily the sun goes down again blue and golden.
Julienne only replied, "Beautiful! now will we go up!"—being less capable than Linda of swift transitions. When they saw, above, the tranquil, bright, contented Idoine again,—always steadfastly and serenely active,—undisturbed by regret or expectation,—wearing only the harvest-wreath of action, never the flowery bridal-wreath,—so many white blossoms at her feet, lying ungathered for garland or festoon,—her pure, radiant soul like a clear, bright tone, which bears the charm of its melody through moist, cloudy air, undisturbed and unbroken,—then did she feel that Idoine was connected with her by a more sisterly tie than Linda. The former was to her an ideal and a constellation in her heaven above her; the latter, an unknown one, which sparkles far off and invisible in a second hemisphere of the heavens; but in her the womanly power of loving on, almost even to the degree of hatred, worked on more intensely than in any one woman, and she remained constant to her old friend. Idoine was one of those female souls which resemble the moon; pale and faint must she stand in the magnificent evening sky, which splendor and burning clouds adorn, and not a single shadow can she dislodge on the earth, and mounts with invisible rays, but all other light grows pale, and hers grows out of the shadow, until at last her supernatural radiance invests the earthly night, and transforms it into a second world, and all hearts love her, weeping, and the nightingales sing in her beams.
All was now settled and ended. Linda kept herself reserved, and merely from respect to the law of social propriety, which she never overstepped. Idoine, guessing a change, softly drew herself back out of her former familiarity. Early in the dark morning they parted, but Julienne told not her friend, how, when they left each other, she had seen Idoine turn away with wet eyes.
126. CYCLE.
Albano had, during Linda's absence, received from Roquairol a request not to travel long just now, so that he might in a few days see his tragedy of "The Tragedian." Gaspard, whom he found displeased at Linda's shyness of marriage, gave him a singular note on a card for Linda, containing nothing but this, from her invisible father:—
"I approve thy love. I wait for thee to seal it, that I may at length embrace my daughter.
"The Future One."
So many weighty wishes of others concurring with his own, took away now from his tender sense of honor the suspicion of selfishness and importunity, if he should ask of her the fairest festival of his life. He gave his father great satisfaction by his resolution to do this. Gaspard communicated to him private war intelligence, and told him, jokingly, it would be soon time now, that he should help fight for his friends, the modern French. Albano said it was even his earnest purpose. He was glad to hear that from a youth, Gaspard said; war trained one to business, and the right or wrong of it had nothing to do with the case, and concerned others, namely, those who declared the war.