THE PHYSICIAN RECEIVING THE PRINCESS IN THE MARQUIS'S SICKROOM.
Then one day Monsieur de Mérosailles, having tried all else that he could think of, took to his bed. He sent for a physician, and paid him a high fee to find the seeds of a rapid and fatal disease in him; and he made his body-servant whiten his face and darken the room; and he groaned very pitifully, saying that he was sick, and that he was glad of it, for death would be better far than the continued disdain of the Princess Osra. And all this, being told by the marquis's servants to the princess's waiting-women, reached Osra's ears, and caused her much perturbation. For she now perceived that the passion, of the marquis was real and deep, and she became very sorry for him; and the longer the face of the rascally physician grew, the more sad the princess became; and she walked up and down, bewailing the terrible effects of her beauty, wishing that she were not so fair, and mourning very tenderly for the sad plight of the unhappy marquis. Through all Prince Rudolf looked on, but was bound by his wager not to undeceive her; moreover, he found much entertainment in the matter, and swore that it was worth three times a thousand crowns.
At last the marquis sent, by the mouth of the physician, a very humble and pitiful message to the princess, in which he spoke of himself as near to death, hinted at the cruel cause of his condition, and prayed her of her compassion to visit him in his chamber and speak a word of comfort, or at least let him look on her face; for the brightness of her eyes, he said, might cure even what it had caused.
Deceived by this appeal, Princess Osra agreed to go. Moved by some strange impulse, she put on her loveliest gown, dressed her hair most splendidly, and came into his chamber looking like a goddess. There lay the marquis, white as a ghost and languid, on his pillows; and they were left, as they thought, alone. Then Osra sat down, and began to talk very gently and kindly to him, glancing only at the madness which brought him to his sad state, and imploring him to summon his resolution and conquer his sickness for his friends' sake at home in France, and for the sake of her brother, who loved him.
"There is nobody who loves me," said the marquis, petulantly; and when Osra cried out at this, he went on: "For the love of those whom I do not love is nothing to me, and the only soul alive I love—" There he stopped, but his eyes, fixed on Osra's face, ended the sentence for him. And she blushed, and looked away. Then, thinking the moment had come, he burst suddenly into a flood of protestations and self-reproach, cursing himself for a fool and a presumptuous madman, pitifully craving her pardon, and declaring that he did not deserve her kindness, and yet that he could not live without it, and that anyhow he would be dead soon and thus cease to trouble her. But she, being thus passionately assailed, showed such sweet tenderness and compassion and pity that Monsieur de Mérosailles came very near to forgetting that he was playing a comedy, and threw himself into his part with eagerness, redoubling his vehemence, and feeling now full half of what he said. For the princess was to his eyes far more beautiful in her softer mood. Yet he remembered his wager, and at last, when she was nearly in tears, and ready, as it seemed, to do anything to give him comfort, he cried desperately:
"Ah, leave me, leave me! Leave me to die alone! Yet for pity's sake, before you go, and before I die, give me your forgiveness, and let your lips touch my forehead in token of it! And then I shall die in peace."
At that the princess blushed still more, and her eyes were dim and shone; for she was very deeply touched at his misery and at the sad prospect of the death of so gallant a gentleman for love. Thus she could scarcely speak for emotion; and the marquis, seeing her emotion, was himself much affected; and she rose from her chair and bent over him, and whispered comfort to him. Then she leant down, and very lightly touched his forehead with her lips; and he felt her eyelashes, that were wet with her tears, brush the skin of his forehead; and then she sobbed, and covered her face with her hands. Indeed, his state seemed to her most pitiful.
Thus Monsieur de Mérosailles had won one of his three kisses; yet, strange to tell, there was no triumph in him, but he now perceived the baseness of his device; and the sweet kindness of the princess, working together with the great beauty of her softened manner, so affected him that he thought no more of his wager, and could not endure to carry on his deception. And nothing would serve his turn but to confess to the princess what he had done, and humble himself in the dust before her, and entreat her to pardon him and let him find forgiveness. Therefore, impelled by these feelings, after he had lain still a few moments listening to the princess's weeping, he leapt suddenly out of the bed, showing himself fully clothed under the bedgown which he now eagerly tore off, and he rubbed all the white he could from his cheeks; and then he fell on his knees before the princess, crying to her that he had played the meanest trick on her, and that he was a scoundrel and no gentleman, and yet that, unless she forgave him, he should in very truth die. Nay, he would not consent to live, unless he could win from her pardon for his deceit. And in all this he was now most absolutely in earnest, wondering only how he had not been as passionately enamoured of her from the first as he had feigned himself to be. For a man in love can never conceive himself out of it; nor he that is out of it, in it: for, if he can, he is halfway to the one or the other, however little he may know it.
At first the princess sat as though she were turned to stone. But when he had finished his confession, and she understood the trick that had been played upon her, and how not only her kiss but also her tears had been won from her by fraud; and when she thought, as she did, that the marquis was playing another trick upon her, and that there was no more truth nor honesty in his present protestations than in those which went before—she fell into great shame and into a great rage; and her eyes flashed like the eyes of her father himself, as she rose to her feet and looked down on Monsieur de Mérosailles as he knelt imploring her. Now her face turned pale from red, and she set her lips, and she drew her gown close round her lest his touch should defile it (so the unhappy gentleman understood the gesture), and she daintily picked her steps round him lest by chance she should happen to come in contact with so foul a thing. Thus she walked toward the door, and, having reached it, she turned and said to him: