“When Regnard was bowing before me, I saw the resemblance more than ever—and I drank in his words, because his voice is so much like Gaston’s; yet, I do not see how any one could take one for the other. Bold was with me—he never leaves me—and he annoyed me by snapping and snarling at Regnard—no mistake on good Bold’s part of any one for his master! Regnard seated himself with me on this bench in the very spot where Gaston had sat last autumn, and I was trying to lose myself in dreaming that it was Gaston and not Regnard who was with me—when something he said brought me to myself with a shock. For he—” She stopped, and I said:
“He told you of his love. Tell me all, Madame.”
Again I saw that girlish flash of pleasure pass across her anxious and pleading eyes. Francezka had something undyingly childlike in her composition.
“He told me of his love so quickly I could not stop him—but I was indiscreet in one thing. When he told me he regarded my fortune as less than nothing, I did 265 whisper into Bold’s ear, loud enough for Regnard to hear—‘So say they all—except’—the exception I meant was Gaston. He is the only suitor I have yet had, who did not assure me that my fortune was nothing to him. Regnard overheard me—and I saw he was angered. He would not be stopped, although I rose and put up my hand, and turned my back. But at last, I said to him:
“‘And your brother, Monsieur?’ for, of course, Regnard knew that Gaston loved me. When I said this, I turned my eyes full upon him, because I wished to intimidate him. He colored a little, but said, coolly: ‘Madame, I am not wanting in brotherly affection, but in these matters my brother and I are as man to man.’”
It was just what I had heard Gaston say, nearly seven years before. Francezka resumed:
“Then I said to him, without the least tremor in the world, and feeling myself thrilled with joy and pride at the telling—‘Monsieur, I am, and have been for nearly a year, the wife of your brother, Gaston Cheverny.’”
Being a natural actress, Francezka went through this scene so that it was as if it were all happening again. She rose as she spoke and actually grew taller, and her voice, although low, had a ring of joy and exultation in it when she repeated the words, “I am the wife of Gaston Cheverny.”
Still standing, she came nearer to me—I had risen too—and kept on:
“I have not words to describe to you Regnard’s countenance at that. It was not disappointment; it seemed to be only the most overmastering rage. It is his nature to bear a secret disappointment stoically, but 266 he knew that Gaston must hear of what had passed—and besides—he had paid me court more steadily and assiduously ever since I was fourteen than Gaston himself—for Gaston, you must know, has had periods of jealousy and pique, and for months together, has sometimes refrained from writing to me or seeing me. Not so Regnard. The words that would inflame Gaston to anger, Regnard would pass with a cool smile—I liked him none the better for it. But he was not cool then. He said in a suppressed fury: