Upon this the pupil commented that we live in a vale of tears. Having corrected this proposition, the teacher contradicted it as flatly as was consistent with politeness and good Italian.
"We live, on the contrary," he added, opening Le mie Prigioni at a turned-down page with a view to reading it aloud—"we others at Les Oliviers—we live in an earthly Paradise. Yes?" he asked, smiling and indicating all the sunny beauty with a sweep of the hand. "But," he added, with a deep sigh, and in wild Italian, "Paradise had its serpent and the Garden of the Hesperides its dragon. So also our Paradise here."
"Very true," the pupil corroborated, wondering what the serpent of the Oliviers Paradise was.
The thin man, she remembered, once said it was frogs. Miss Boundrish thought it was the absence of fashion shops. Her father considered it to be the badness of foreign tobacco and the late arrival of Money Market intelligence. Her mother held the inferiority of butcher's meat, together with the presence of foreigners, a fair equivalent for the Enemy of Mankind. A German Baron had been heard to mutter that it was the impossibility of escaping from "diese verrückten Engländer," and a Frenchman, the ubiquity of "ces Miss Anglaises maigres et à dents enormes."
After a thoughtful pause, M. Isidore hinted darkly in correct and melancholy French at griefs too poignant for expression, and entirely peculiar to Les Oliviers. The place, he added, lay under the spell of a powerful enchantment. Personally, he was unable to resist it. In some respects, he confessed, he was weak, powerless as an infant even. But he was fully aware that, as Madame had been gracious enough to observe, this was no place for him. His relations continually counselled, even commanded him, to leave it, but in vain. He was rooted to the spot; he was bound to the ridge with unbreakable chains; he had, under the terrible spell cast upon him, long ceased to be master of himself. Of course, he was fully aware that he ought not to make revelations of a character so intimate. He was abusing the angelic goodness of Madame; he was trespassing upon the gracious consideration, the sympathetic interest, she had been so obliging as to manifest for him; but, in short, he could not help it.
How well emotion became this handsome young foreigner; how natural and unaffected, how perfectly free from self-consciousness and false shame he was! The French certainly are a most fascinating people—at least, when young and good-looking, and of another sex—Madame reflected. "But I do wish the poor boy wasn't quite so hard hit. It might be awkward too."
"Pray don't apologize, dear M. Isidore," she replied, in the best English and the kindest possible manner. "You honour me by your confidence; it interests me exceedingly. It touches me. Don't hesitate," she added, in dulcet accents, suddenly remembering his lack of English, and speaking French, "to tell me anything that is on your mind, if—if it affords you the slightest relief.—For if," she reflected, "he really is so madly in love with me, he had better out with it at once, and I can laugh it off as a boy's fancy, and at the same time let him see how much higher and holier English views of such feelings and relationships are. It may be the turning-point, the beginning of a new era, a higher life to this young and ardent nature.—Tell me," she said with a gentle smile, "as you would tell your own mother."
"I have told my own mother. I went to Monte Carlo yesterday on purpose," he returned, with perfect simplicity. "And she entirely disapproves of my sentiments—of the whole affair, in short."
"Oh!" murmured Ermengarde, rather taken aback.
"But what would you?" he added. "Mothers are like that. It is perfectly natural. She counsels me to take refuge in flight. But there are sentiments, and those of the most sacred, the most exalted—there are crises of the soul—for which flight is of no avail."