The same day that you found Irene, I recovered Louise!
In making my tenth pilgrimage from Richeport to Pont de l'Arche, I caught a glimpse from afar of Madame Taverneau's plump face encased in a superb bonnet embellished with flaming ribbons! The drifting sea-weed and floating fruit which were the certain indication to Christopher Columbus of the presence of his long-dreamed-of land, did not make his heart bound with greater delight than mine at the sight of Madame Taverneau's bonnet! For that bonnet was the sign of Louise's return.
Oh! how charming thou didst appear to me then, frightful tulle cabbage, with thy flaunting strings like unto an elephant's ears, and thy enormous bows resembling those pompons with which horses' heads are decorated! How much dearer to me wert thou than the diadem of an empress, a vestal's fillet, the ropes of pearls twined among the jetty locks of Venice's loveliest patricians, or the richest head-dress of antique or modern art!
Ah, but Madame Taverneau was handsome! Her complexion, red as a beet, seemed to me fresh as a new-blown rose,—so the poets always say,—I could have embraced her resolutely, so happy was I.
The thought that Madame Taverneau might have returned alone flashed through my mind ere I reached the threshold, and I felt myself grow pale, but a glance through the half-open door drove away my terror. There, bending over her table, was Louise, rolling grains of rice in red sealing-wax in order to fill the interstices between the seals that she had gotten from me, and among which figured marvellously well your crest so richly and curiously emblazoned.
A slender thread of light falling upon the soft contour of her features, carved in cameo their pure and delicate outline. When she saw me a faint blush brightened her pallor like a drop of crimson in a cup of milk; she was charming, and so distinguished-looking that, putting aside the pencils, the vase of flowers, the colors and the glass of clear water beside her, I should never have dreamt that a simple screen-painter sat before me.
Isn't it strange, when so many fashionable women in the highest position look like apple-sellers or old-clothes women in full dress, that a girl in the humblest walks of life should have the air of a princess, in spite of her printed cotton gown!
With me, dear Roger, Louise Guérin the grisette has vanished; but Louise Guérin, a charming and fascinating creature whom any one would be proud to love, has taken her place. You know that with all my oddities, my wilfulness, my Huronisms as you call them, the slightest equivocal word, the least approach to a bold jest, uttered by feminine lips shocks me. Louise has never, in the many conversations that I have had with her, alarmed my captious modesty; and often the most innocent young girls, the virtuous mothers of a family, have made me blush up to my eyes. I am by no means so prudish; I discourse upon Trimalcion's feast and the orgies of the twelve Caesars, but certain expressions, used by every one, never pass my lips; I imagine that I see toads and serpents drop from the tongues of those who speak them: only roses and pearls fall from Louise's lips. How many women have fallen in my eyes from the rank of a goddess to the condition of a fishwoman, by one word whose ignominy I might try in vain to make them understand!
I have told you all this, my dear Roger, so that you may see how from an ordinary railway adventure, a slight flirtation, has resulted a serious and genuine love. I treat myself and things with rough frankness, and closely scan my head and heart, and arrive at the same result—I am desperately in love with Louise. The result does not alarm me; I have never shrunk from happiness. It is my peculiar style of courage, which is rarer than you imagine; I have seen men who would seek the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth, who had not the courage to be happy!
Since her return Louise appears thoughtful and agitated; a change has come over the spirit of her dream. It is evident that her journey has thrown new light upon her situation. Something important has taken place in her life. What is it? I neither know nor care to know. I accept Louise as I find her with her present surroundings. Perhaps absence has revealed to her, as it has to me, that another existence is necessary to her. This at least is certain, she is less shy, less reserved, more confiding; there is a tender grace in her manner unfelt before. When we walk in the garden, she leans upon my arm, instead of touching it with the tips of her fingers. Now, when I am with her, her cold reserve begins to thaw, and instead of going on with her work, as formerly, she rests her head on her hand and gazes at me with a dreamy fixedness singular to behold. She seems to be mentally deliberating something, and trying to come to a conclusion. May Eros, with his golden arrows, grant that it prove favorable to me! It will prove so, or human will has no power, and the magnetic fluid is an error!