TO CLOCHONNE, AFTER MADEMOISELLE
On through the forest, on over the narrow path, the horse seeming to feel my own impatience, his hoofs crushing the fallen twigs and the vegetation that lay in the way, the branches of the trees striking me in forehead and eyes, my heart on fire, my mind a turmoil, on to learn the truth, on to see her! The moon was now overhead, and here and there it lighted up the path. Close behind me came Frojac. I heard the footfalls and the breathing of his horse.
Would we come up to her before she reached Clochonne? This depended on the length of start she had. She would lose some time, perhaps, through being less familiar with the road than we were, yet wherever the road lay straight before her she would force her horse to its utmost, guessing that her departure would be discovered and herself pursued.
My mind inclined this way and that as I rode. Now I saw how strong was the evidence against her, yet I refused to be convinced by it before I should hear what she might have to say. Now I conjured up her image before me, and then all the evidence was naught. It was impossible that this face, of all faces in the world, could have been a mask to conceal falsehood and treachery, that this voice could have lied in its sweet and sorrowful tones, that her appearance of grief could have been but a pretence, that her seemingly unconscious signs of love could have been simulation!
Yet had not the gypsy sung of the false flame of woman's love? It is true, she had bade me heed these words. Would she have done so had her own appearance of love been false? Perhaps it was this very thought, the very improbability of a false woman's warning a man against woman's treachery, that had made her do so, that I might the less readily on occasion believe her false. Who can tell the resources and devices of a subtle woman?
What? Was I doubting her? Was I believing the story? Was I, with my closer knowledge of her, with my experience of the freaks of circumstance, with my perception of her heart, to accept the first apparent deduction from the few facts at hand, as blind, unthinking, undiscriminating soldiers, Blaise and Frojac, had done? Did I not know of what kind of woman she was? She was no Mlle. d'Arency.
Yet, who knows but that poor De Noyard had believed Mlle. d'Arency true? Might he not, with the eyes of love, have seen in her as pure and spotless a creature as I had seen in Mlle. de Varion? Do the eyes of love, then, deceive? Is the confidence of lovers never to be relied on?
But I must have read her heart aright. Surely her heart had spoken to mine. Surely its voice was that of truth. Surely I knew her. Were not her eyes to be believed. Were not truth, goodness, gentleness, love, written on her face?
Yet, how went the gypsy's song,—the one we had heard him sing at
Godeau's inn, by the forest road?
"But, ah, the sadness of the day
When woman shows her treason!
And, oh, the price we have to pay
For joys that have their season!
Her look of love is but a mask
For plots that she is weaving.
Alas, for those who fondly bask
In smiles that are deceiving!"