‘And yet,’ thought Melville, ‘how often you have stretched out your delicate fingers and pushed down the most finely-wrought web of human happiness—just for pastime!’
Aloud he said: ‘If she and he were about to live their lives on a desert island, I am convinced they would be entirely suited to each other. But as they will live in the world, and perforce in what they call the great world, who shall presume to say what their marriage will become? It may pass into that indifferent and amiable friendship which is the most usual issue of such marriages, or it may grow into that direct antagonism which is perhaps its still commoner result; on the other hand, it may become that perfect flower of human sympathy which, like the aloe, blossoms once in a century; but, if that miracle happen, such flowers are not immortal; an unkind grasp will suffice to break them off at the root. On the whole, I am not especially hopeful; she is too young, and he——’
‘And he?’ said Nadine Napraxine, with a gleam of curiosity in her glance.
‘I am not his confessor; I doubt if he ever confess—to his own sex,’ replied Melville; ‘but if I had been, I should have said to him: “My son, one does not cure strong fevers with meadow-daisies; wait till your soul is cleansed before you offer it to a child whom you take from God.” That is what I should have said in the confessional; but I only know Othmar on the neutral ground of society. I cannot presume to say it there.’
‘You are too serious, Monsignore,’ said Nadine, with her enigmatical smile. ‘Marriage is not such a very serious thing, I assure you. Ask Platon.’
‘Prince Napraxine is exceptionally happy,’ said Melville, so gravely that she laughed gaily in his face.
Meanwhile Yseulte dismissed the maid, undressed herself slowly, kissed the pearls when she had unclasped them; and, kneeling down under her crucifix, said many prayers for Othmar.
She was soon asleep, like a tired child, and she had his note under her pillow; nevertheless, she dreamed of Nadine Napraxine, and her sleep was not the pure unbroken rest that she had always had before. Once she awoke in a great terror, her heart beating, her limbs trembling.
‘If he did not love me!’ she cried aloud; then the light of the lamp fell on the open casket, on the necklace of pearls. They seemed to say to her, ‘What should he want with you, unless he loved you?’
She fell asleep again, and with a smile on her face.