She laid her dolls on the carpet, sprang on her mother’s neck, and kissed her on both cheeks passionately, after which she took up her dolls, saying to them:
“Come, my little dears!” and left the room.
“Good heavens!” said Madame de Tecle, laughing, “this is an unfortunate incident; but I still insist, and I implore you to take my word. She will have sense, courage, and goodness. Now,” she continued in a more serious tone, “take time to think over it, and return to give me your decision, should it be favorable. If not, we must bid each other adieu.”
“Madame,” said Camors, rising and standing before her, “I will promise never to address a word to you which a son might not utter to his mother. Is it not this which you demand?”
Madame de Tecle fixed upon him for an instant her beautiful eyes, full of joy and gratitude, then suddenly covered her face with her two hands.
“I thank you!” she murmured, “I am very happy!” She extended her hand, wet with her tears, which he took and pressed to his lips, bowed low, and left the room.
If there ever was a moment in his fatal career when the young man was really worthy of admiration, it was this. His love for Madame de Tecle, however unworthy of her it might be, was nevertheless great. It was the only true passion he had ever felt. At the moment when he saw this love, the triumph of which he thought certain, escape him forever, he was not only wounded in his pride but was crushed in his heart.
Yet he took the stroke like a gentleman. His agony was well borne. His first bitter words, checked at once, alone betrayed what he suffered.
He was as pitiless for his own sorrows as he sought to be for those of others. He indulged in none of the common injustice habitual to discarded lovers.
He recognized the decision of Madame de Tecle as true and final, and was not tempted for a moment to mistake it for one of those equivocal arrangements by which women sometimes deceive themselves, and of which men always take advantage. He realized that the refuge she had sought was inviolable. He neither argued nor protested against her resolve. He submitted to it, and nobly kissed the noble hand which smote him. As to the miracle of courage, chastity, and faith by which Madame de Tecle had transformed and purified her love, he cared not to dwell upon it. This example, which opened to his view a divine soul, naked, so to speak, destroyed his theories. One word which escaped him, while passing to his own house, proved the judgment which he passed upon it, from his own point of view. “Very childish,” he muttered, “but sublime!”