“I will walk,” I answered.
The cart moved lightly on, in spite of its quadruple burden, while Lucien waved me an adieu. I could see the hat of Mlle. de Jussat immovable by the side of the shoulder of the coachman, who gave a “pull up” to his horse, then the carriage disappeared and I walked along alone, under the same blue sky, and between the same trees covered with an impalpable verdure. But an extraordinary anguish had replaced the cheerfulness and the happy ardor of the beginning of the walk.
This time the die had been thrown. I had given battle, I had lost; I should be sent away from the château ignobly. It was less this prospect which overcame me than a strange mingling of regret and of shame.
Behold whither my learned psychology had led me! Behold the result of this siege en règle undertaken against the heart of this young girl! Not a word on her part in response to the most impassioned declaration, and I, at the moment for action, what had I found to do but recite some romantic phrases? And she, by a simple gesture, had fixed me to my place!
I saw in imagination the face of Count André. I saw in a flash the expression of contempt when they should tell him of this scene. Finally, I was no longer the subtle psychologist or the excited young man, I was a self-love humiliated to the dust by the time I reached the gate of the château.
In recognizing the lake, the line of the mountains, the front of the house, pride gave place to a frightful apprehension of what I was going to suffer, and the project crossed my mind to flee, to go back directly to Clermont, rather than experience anew the disdain of Mlle. de Jussat, and the affront which her father would inflict upon me. It was too late, the marquis himself came to meet me, in the principal avenue, accompanied by Lucien who called me. This cry of the child had the customary intonation of familiarity, and the reception of the father proved that I had been wrong to feel myself lost so soon.
“They abandoned you,” said he, “and did not even think of sending the carriage back for you. You must have walked a good stretch!” He consulted his watch. “I am afraid that Charlotte has taken cold,” he added, “she went to bed as soon as she came in. These spring suns are so treacherous.”
“So Charlotte had said nothing yet. She is suffering this evening. That will be for to-morrow,” thought I, and I began that evening to pack my papers. I held to them with so ingenuous a confidence in my talent as a philosopher!
The next day arrived. Nothing vet. I was again with Charlotte at the breakfast table; she was pale, as if she had passed through a crisis of violent pain. I saw that the sound of my voice made her tremble slightly. Then this was all. Ah! what a strange week I passed, expecting each morning that she had spoken, crucified by this expectation and incapable of taking the first step myself or of going away from the château! This was not alone for want of a pretext to give. A burning curiosity held me there. I had wished to live as much as to think. Well! I was living, and in what a fever!
At last, the eighth day, the marquis asked me to come into his study.