She read out a succession of names of people from various countries, with a running commentary on each which would have given the impression that these people she was so glad to find again were individually perfectly indifferent to her. Then she took up her letters.
“Ah! at last!” she exclaimed, tearing open a large envelope. “Let me see the date.—Now I am relieved!—Thank heaven, he is still there!” She read about a page, and then suddenly cried: “In less than a month? What, in less than a month?” Then she finished the letter in silence, and afterward remained a long time without speaking, but with an anxious and thoughtful look.
“Ah! Gabrielle, are you still here?” she said, rousing at last from her reverie. “I beg your pardon.” She rang. “You must be shown to your room. I advise you to take some repose. I shall do the same. We shall see each other again at seven o’clock, which is my hour. I expect hardly any one to-day, and shall wear my morning dress.”
Fleurange, thus dismissed, gladly followed the valet de chambre, who answered the bell, through the salons and up the grand staircase to the second story where her chamber was. There he left her with a respectful bow, after pointing out the corridor that gave access to the princess’ apartments without the necessity of passing through any of the rooms.
The chamber to which she was taken was handsome and spacious, but it seemed rather ornamented than furnished. Its size, its painting and gilding would have allowed much more and much richer furniture. But such as it was, it pleased the young girl’s fancy. The broad and lofty window in a deep embrasure admitted floods of light, but would have afforded no other view than the sky, if three stone steps had not made it accessible. From the upper step the eye looked down upon the interior court of the palace, which resembled a cloister with its light colonnade. A limpid stream flowed from a white marble fountain in the midst of velvet-like turf and surrounded by rhododendrons. Birds were warbling in a large aviary. All these things combined to make up a soft, pleasing picture, crowned by the azure vault of heaven—a picture singularly quiet and dreamy, and Fleurange remained a long time seated on a stone seat within the embrasure, allowing her thoughts to wander, as often happened, in vague regions, until a servant with her trunk reminded her it was time to descend in more than one sense from her elevation, and proceed to the matter-of-fact task of unpacking and arranging her effects. About to commence, she found she had left her satchel in the salon. As it contained her keys, she was obliged to go for it, and she took the short passage which led directly to the princess’ sitting-room; but, instead of returning the same way, she could not resist the desire of examining again, alone and at leisure, the sumptuous rooms she had only passed through before. She went leisurely through them, admiring as she went, with a mixture of childlike curiosity and an innate perception of the beautiful, all the objects that were collected here in uncommon profusion; but, notwithstanding the exquisite taste displayed, she could not help observing the ostentation, which by contrast vividly recalled the remembrance of the Old Mansion—the dear Old Mansion! where simplicity was so happily combined with the magnificence of art, where everything that charmed the eye appealed to the soul, inspired serenity and peace, and inclined one to application and study; whereas here, what met the eye and struck the attention spoke of amusement, luxury, and pride.
This comparison made Fleurange melancholy. She ceased looking around with interest, and was about to return to her chamber by the grand stairway without continuing her explorations, when, in crossing the hall, a large half-opened door opposite attracted her attention, and she yielded to the curiosity of glancing into the only apartment she had not seen. She pushed the door open, and entered a room equally as large as the others, but which seemed rather a study-room than a salon. The half-open shutters allowed the volumes in Russia leather that lined the walls to be seen, as well as the ebony book-cases on all sides. Furniture systematically arranged and protected by coverings, tables loaded with books placed in order as if no one had touched them for a long time, everything showed this room was unoccupied, and had not, like the rest, been prepared for the return of the mistress of the house; but a certain atmosphere of studious repose pervaded it which was more in conformity with Fleurange’s real tastes than all the magnificence she had just beheld. She therefore advanced some steps, looking around, and, the better to see the objects scarcely to be distinguished in the obscurity, she went to one of the windows and ventured to throw the shutters entirely open. The strong light which at once filled the room revealed a picture before her which she had not previously noticed. She glanced at it, and—it is impossible to describe her feelings!—She could not herself have found words to express her extreme astonishment and the overpowering emotion that made her turn pale and then red as she almost fell.—The picture thus suddenly revealed to her was that which had played so important a part in her life—her father’s last work—in a word, the Cordelia for which she had sat so long ago, and which she had never heard mentioned since without agitation!
For some moments she was overpowered by a thousand thoughts rushing over her—thoughts similar to those she had so successfully banished some months before by a supreme effort. It is not astonishing they should be involuntarily reawakened now. The lively curiosity with which she was filled was excusable, as well as her impatience to know how this picture came here, and whose room it was.—She felt she should soon know, and, with a heart still throbbing, she closed the shutters, and softly left the room in which she had just beheld this unexpected apparition, as it were.
She crossed the hall, and was at the foot of the stairs when she met Mademoiselle Barbe in a great hurry, and in that stage of fatigue bordering on ill-humor which, on a day of departure or arrival, is to be seen (and not wholly without reason) in those on whom rests the weight of packing and unpacking. Fleurange stopped her nevertheless, having resolved to ask an explanation of the first person she met.
“Barbara,” she said, “I have been examining all the rooms.”
These words brought a smile to the servant’s face, for she prided herself on the splendor of her mistress’ palace.