'Une sensitive!' murmured her visitant a little impatiently. 'You see, my dear Duke!—it is Aimée Desclée, not Rachel; Adrienne Lecouvreur, not Mlle. Mars.'
'The greater pity then to take her from her orange-groves,' answered Béthune. 'What will Paris or the world give that will compensate for all her loss!'
Damaris did not hear. With shame at her own emotion, and unwillingness that it should be pitied or observed, she had turned away, and had been sobbing silently over the uplifted head and questioning face of Clovis, who had come upward to inspect the strangers.
'If Esther can move her so greatly,' said Nadine with her little ironical smile, 'what will Dona Sol do and Marion de l'Orme?'
'I do not think,' said Béthune, 'that it is Esther which moves her now; it is your abrupt revelation to her of her own powers. Surely to discover you have genius must be like discovering that you have a snake in your breast and eternal life in your hand.'
She laughed, and went to where Damaris stood with the dog, striving to conquer her weakness.
'My dear child, surely you cannot weep for Gros Louis? Nay, I understand; I startled you because I told you that if you study and strive you can do great things. I believe so. If you wish I will help you to do them.'
The girl was silent. So immense was the vision which opened before her, and so enormous to her fancy were the perils and difficulties which stretched between her and this promised land, that she was mute from awe and from amazement.
Always to dwell on Bonaventure, always to steer and sail on the sea, always to gather the olives and oranges, always to see the sun rise over the wild shores of Italy and set over the coast of Spain far away in immeasurable golden distances, always to run up and down the rocks like the goats, and swim like the dolphins, and go to bed with the birds and get up with them—this had been the only life she had known. For the moment she could attain no conception of any other. She had seen the churches at Villefranche and Eza, and she had seen the building yards of Villefranche and St. Tropez, and that was all; her only idea of the great world was of a perpetual fête-day, with the priests always in their broidered canonicals, and the church bells always ringing, and the people always thronging in holiday attire, and going up and down sunny streets noisily and laughing.