But the princess did not appear to take any notice of her. Standing in the centre of the room in the richest of dresses, she was doing the honors of the house with her usual ease. All at once Fleurange heard her name called: “Gabrielle!” It was the princess who beckoned to her. Fleurange approached, but a mist veiled her eyes, for she had seen from the first that Count George was beside his mother.
“My bracelet is unclasped. Fasten it, Gabrielle,” said the princess in her usual tone, at once kind and patronizing. Fleurange bent down and clasped the bracelet.
“George,” said the princess, “this is Gabrielle of whom I have often spoken to you. Gabrielle, this is my son.”
George bowed without attempting to speak. Fleurange did the same, but a painful sensation made the blood rush to her face. For the first time in her life, she felt tacitly guilty of a falsehood, or at least of deception, and, though comforted by the certainty the princess had no suspicion of what had taken place two hours before, a flash of haughty displeasure escaped from her eyes as she raised them and turned away her head.
Count George looked at her attentively for an instant, then became thoughtful, and it was only with an effort he took any part in the conversation at table. But in the evening, thanks to the Marquis Adelardi, whose friendship he valued and whose mind was in sympathy with his, he became more animated, and in his turn shone almost as much as his brilliant interlocutor; but he did not approach Fleurange, and did not even seem once to look towards her.
ART AND RELIGION.
God reveals himself to all the faculties of the soul. We not only know him as truth; we also love him as beauty. As he is infinite truth, so is he perfect beauty. Without the existence of God as absolute truth, science is impossible. Science, which is co-ordinated knowledge, can never be well grounded unless it rest upon the eternal and first cause, which is God. God as truth is at the bottom of all knowledge; as beauty, he is the ideal present to the soul in every conception of art.