Michelle was almost laughing now as she glanced up, her fair face looking quite roguish under her black hood, her eyes dancing as they met Roger’s, which were comically serious.
The dark rain was still pouring, and it dripped upon his bare brown head, with his long curls on his shoulders, and shone upon his sun-browned, vivid face, as he held his hat to protect her from the rain. He kept on gravely,—
“When I came to St. Germains I began to see—well, as you have said, what prayer was not. I could not give thanks for the loss of my estate, as the King does daily for the loss of his three kingdoms. His Majesty thinks he led a wicked life in his youth, especially in breaking his vows of fidelity to his wife,—a most heinous sin, I take it,” Roger added boldly, desiring the approval of the lady in whose sweet company he was at that moment; “but I reckon myself to have led a clean and gentlemanly life when I was in the enjoyment of Egremont. Most of my sins came from the losing of it; so I have no reason to give thanks for that loss. But of late when I go into a church or a chapel, and kneel down to pray, I think less of my grievances, and more of the perfections of the good God. My injuries seem but small to what Christ endured. I am far, very far off from praying well, but I do not pray so ill as I once did—and oh, mademoiselle, what a fool you must think me for telling you all this!”
“Not at all,” answered Michelle, in a soft, low voice. They were then passing through a public square, under trees which shielded them a little from the rain, and they seemed alone and far from the rest of the world. “All human beings, I know, go along the road you have described—women, more than men; for we lead such interior lives, we dwell so much with our thoughts and our feelings and our prayers, that they are more to us than the same things are to men. All I ask for now is that, knowing my duty, I may do it, that no human being may ever be wronged by me, no matter how great my malice against him may be, and that I may have the privilege to suffer in place of those whom I love.”
“And whom do you love as much as that, mademoiselle?” suddenly asked Roger.
Michelle looked at him with startled eyes. She stopped still in the path. Roger, his eyes fixed on her, read her like an open book. Whom, indeed, did she love? She had neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. The tie was strong between Madame de Beaumanoir and herself despite their unlikeness—there had been kindness on the one side, gratitude on the other; but not the affection which asks to be sacrificed for the beloved object. There was François, a good fellow, and she had friends, but—
“I perceive,” she said presently, “that I have deceived myself. I am poorer than I thought.”
“You mean, mademoiselle,” said Roger, deferentially, “that some day you hope to love so deeply and truly that you can in truth make that prayer to suffer.”
“No,” replied Michelle, quietly, and walking on, “I neither hope nor expect that. My prayer was foolish and insincere,—far more foolish and insincere than any prayer you ever made in your life.”
They walked on without uttering a word more. The morning, dark and dismal before, seemed to have grown a thousand times worse to Roger Egremont. Châlons he thought the dirtiest town in the world; he wondered the King did not make the citizens keep it cleaner. A man was a fool to let the love of a woman lodge in his heart,—to be made wretched one moment by a chance word and joyful the next, for nothing at all. Thus, discontented and unhappy, he reached the inn. Michelle disappeared to change her wet clothes. François, meeting him in the courtyard, said that Madame de Beaumanoir would not start until the weather cleared.