"'Bah!' says he: 'we are all the same--only we are quieter; we do the same things, only not to the sound of fifes and trumpets--we have no piping to our dancing. In every generation man is selfish, and has a right to be. There was another kind of ball in those days, they called it le bal des victimes. When the Convention had confiscated the property of the guillotined, it was returned to their heirs, after the 9th Thermidor. Thus many of them held their lands, par la grace de Robespierre. Young men began to live fast again, and to enjoy themselves. They gave balls where only those were admitted who could prove that some very near relation had been beheaded; it was a sort of herald's office to the scaffold; and to shew their gratitude for their inheritance, they invented a peculiar mode of salutation. A gentleman would go up to a lady, and jerk his head forwards, as if he dropped it, and the lady would do the same. They called it Salut à la victime; and all this with fiddling and dancing, and wax-lights and champagne. I do not admire that style of thing myself; it was a fashion like any other, and not a pretty one, I think; but I really do see no improvement in young people's babbling of the sanctity of family ties, and of their duty to their fathers, and forefathers, and sighing in secret for their turn to come, even if without the connivance of a Robespierre.'"
"I left the room, for I could not hear him speak in such a way, to such a son. I waited in the antechamber till Count Ernest came out to go to bed. He was sad and silent, and would have passed without noticing me, but I took up my light, and followed him. In the passage he suddenly stopped and looked eagerly up the staircase, that was well lighted with a two-branched lamp. 'What now?' thinks I--and then I saw Mamsell Gabrielle coming down from the loft with some plate she had been to fetch, and pass us on her way downstairs. When she had quite disappeared; 'Who is that, Flor?' says he, quickly turning to me--'Who is that lady?'
"When I told him, he shook his head. 'Can it be the same?' he murmured, 'or can I be so far mistaken?' And then after a while, when I had come into his room with him: 'Flor,' he said, 'I am right; she was only on a visit to X, when she was at that ball, and she left it again soon after. Both parents did you say?--and so poor,--so friendless--that she was forced to go to service?--'
"'She wants for nothing here;' I said, to pacify him; for then I saw at once that she was that old flame of his, for whom he had pined so long. 'My dear young master,' I said, 'she could never be better off than she is here. His honor is very kind to her, and will have her treated with the greatest consideration and respect.'
"But he did not seem to hear me; he was sitting there in that great arm-chair by the open window--thinking, and thinking, till he made me feel quite nervous. He appeared to be so troubled in his mind, as all the past came over him, and all that he thought he had forgotten.
"The old rooms again; the tapestry with the hunting scenes; the furniture he had seen from his childhood; the dark woods before the windows, and then his father's horrid talk--if he forgot his poor old Flor a while, I am sure I could not wonder. I was about to steal quietly away and leave the room, when he saw me, and rising, he came and laid his two hands upon my shoulders:
"'Flor,' he said: 'if it should really come to pass--which is more than I dare to hope--what a wonderful,--delightful dispensation it would be!'
"'If what should come to pass?' says I; for fond as I was of the girl, the idea that she could ever become our gracious countess was a thing I never could have dreamed of. 'Let us leave it all to Providence, Flor,' he said, very seriously. 'Good night, Flor--'
"And with that, he went to the window again, and I to my lonely room, where, for all it was so quiet, I could not fall asleep for hours.
"And so, next morning I overslept myself, and was quite ashamed when I saw the bright sun shining in at my window. My room just looked over the vegetable beds that Mamsell Gabrielle had laid out; and I saw her busy among them, cutting what was needed for the table. I was just going to call to her, and tell her how long I had been sleeping, when I saw Count Ernest coming out of the wood, and going towards the little garden. He bowed to her, and I saw how she stood up, and returned his bow with due respect, but quite naturally--not an idea of recognition--not even when he spoke to her;--nothing of the awkwardness of recollecting that her former partner now stood before her as her master. He appeared more embarrassed than she was. And as they crossed the garden, side by side, I could not help thinking to myself, if God should so appoint it, a handsomer pair could not be found in all the world. I was quite willing that the poor child should have all that happiness and honor, if she only made my boy as happy as he deserved to be.