“Did you not see the masquerade, madam?” he asked.
“No,” replied my lady, “I have seen many masquerades,—and besides, I had letters to write, and books to read, and laces to wash.”
Roger knew enough of the world, and in particular of the French world, to feel certain that only a very great lady, or else a woman of a very humble class, would so talk with a stranger.
“I, madam, might have found letters to write and books to read, though I have no laces to wash. But I had never before seen a masquerade. I have been three years in prison, for loyalty to my King, James Stuart, and in all those three years I had not once breathed God’s free air, or trod this green earth of ours; and to be once more my own man, free to see, to walk, to speak, to mix with crowds at will, was so sweet to me that I thirsted for this masquerade. Then I wearied of it.”
“Yes,” replied my lady, “I have often noted that the way to cure a man of a liking for anything is to give him all that he wants, and more, of it. ’Twill cure you of something more than a taste for masquerades.”
Roger opened his eyes a little wider at this sharpness of wit. When and how and where and for what purpose had this rose-lipped girl observed men so closely?
“Thank you, madam, for those words of wisdom; I shall ever remember them,” he replied with a low bow; “and all that I ask of Fate is at least to try me with giving me exactly what I want in life. So far the jade has given me all I did not want. In this world a man must be hammer or anvil, pestle or mortar, bellows or fire. I have ardently desired to be the hammer, the pestle, the bellows; but Fate has made me the anvil, the mortar, the fire.”
“No matter what we want in life,” replied my lady, gently and graciously, “there are but three things of which we may be certain,—work, pain, death.”
These words, so calmly uttered by this fair woman, in that place and at that time, came like a dash of cold water to Roger Egremont. He repeated to himself under his breath the three words,—“work, pain, death;” and my lady watched him narrowly. He saw in her black eyes deep melancholy, despite her smiling mouth. An old superstition flashed into his mind, that one’s fate was revealed in one’s eyes, and he saw many strange vicissitudes pictured in the soft splendor of those eyes.
“Madam,” he said, “that same thought was vaguely with me just now when I left the masquerade. If I be not too free, does it not seem as if we had been this day thinking the same thoughts? And, strangely,—but, after all, not strangely,—we meet, we speak together. Do you remember, madam, how the Seine and the Aube meet at Pont-le-Roi? They have flowed apart for leagues and leagues and leagues, but they flowed apart only to meet at last at Pont-le-Roi. I mean this solely of our thoughts, madam,” he hastily added, seeing a danger signal in the lighting up of her eyes and a faint drawing away of her silken skirts. “Pray pardon me if I am bold of speech,—but I am so lately out of prison, so new to the society of my kind—” he continued, with the humblest manner in the world, as he could well afford, having spoken his mind precisely as he wished.