They went out riding every day, the prince was mad on Julien. Not knowing how else to manifest his sudden friendship, he finished up by offering him the hand of one of his cousins, a rich Moscow heiress; “and once married,” he added, “my influence and that cross of yours will get you made a Colonel within two years.”
“But that cross was not given me by Napoleon, far from it.”
“What does it matter?” said the prince, “didn’t he invent it. It is still the first in Europe by a long way.”
Julien was on the point of accepting; but his duty called him back to the great personage. When he left Korasoff he promised to write. He received the answer to the secret note which he had brought, and posted towards Paris; but he had scarcely been alone for two successive days before leaving France, and Mathilde seemed a worse punishment than death. “I will not marry the millions Korasoff offers me,” he said to himself, “and I will follow his advice.
“After all the art of seduction is his speciality. He has thought about nothing else except that alone for more than fifteen years, for he is now thirty.
“One can’t say that he lacks intelligence; he is subtle and cunning; enthusiasm and poetry are impossible in such a character. He is an attorney: an additional reason for his not making a mistake.
“I must do it, I will pay court to madame de Fervaques.
“It is very likely she will bore me a little, but I will look at her beautiful eyes which are so like those other eyes which have loved me more than anyone in the world.
“She is a foreigner; she is a new character to observe.
“I feel mad, and as though I were going to the devil. I must follow the advice of a friend and not trust myself.”