“No, he could not have done that. He would no more sell it than he would sell the portrait of Rafaella Dannegianti. They are two similar relics, two precious reminiscences.”
Mademoiselle Charnot turned, without a reply, to look at the country which was flying past us in the darkness.
I could just see her profile, and the nervous movement of her eyelids.
As she made no attempt to speak, her silence emboldened me.
“Yes, Mademoiselle, two similar relics, yet sometimes in my hours of madness—as to-day, for instance, here, with you near me—I dare to think that I might be less unfortunate than my friend—that his dream is gone forever—but that mine might return to me—if you were willing.”
She quickly turned toward me, and in the darkness I saw her eyes fixed on mine.
Did the darkness deceive me as to the meaning of this mute response? Was I the victim of a fresh delusion? I fancied that Jeanne looked sad, that perhaps she was thinking of the oaths sworn only to be broken by her former lover, but that she was not quite displeased.
However, it lasted only for a second. When she spoke, it was in a higher key:
“Don’t you think the breeze is very fresh this evening?”
A long-drawn sigh came from the back part of the carriage. M. Charnot was waking up.