“Men grow hard with time. It is vain to expect of a man separated from you for seven years, and but three and thirty years of age, the same sensibility he had when he was six and twenty and had spent many preceding years in your company.”
This was true, and I had often said so to myself, so I told Madame Riano.
“As for yourself, Babache,” continued this indomitable woman, “you are like old Peter, only fit to love and forgive and lay your heart down to be trampled on.”
“Madame, I have laid my heart at the feet of two persons only,” replied I, with spirit; “one is my master, 367 Count Saxe. Surely he never trampled on it. The other is Madame Cheverny, whom I have reverenced ever since I first knew her, and with whom, by the strange turns of fate, I have been much cast for some years.”
“Count Saxe and my niece do not tread on you because they both have noble natures. If they were otherwise now—”
“I should not have had for them the reverent love I cherish, had they been otherwise,” I answered, and just then, Madame Riano taking snuff, she gave a stupendous sneeze that nearly shook the chaise to pieces and actually jarred the door open; so I slipped out, mounted my horse and was glad to lay my legs across his back once more.
I had never mentioned to Count Saxe any change I saw in Gaston Cheverny, for indeed, I saw none—I only felt it. On that Paris journey, however, we talked together much concerning Francezka and her strange fate; and I found that Count Saxe, like myself, saw a subtile and unpleasing change in Gaston. But Francezka was happy—that was enough. Nothing could matter very much so long as Francezka smiled.