The following days were marked by the progress, the crisis, and finally by the decline of the princess’ malady. The effect of care and suitable remedies was soon manifest and convalescence established. But this was the most trying time for those in attendance, and a time when Fleurange’s presence was more necessary than ever. She had directed everything from the first with intelligent devotedness. They had all yielded without any difficulty to her authority—even the invalid herself, incapable of resisting her. But the latter now resumed, with her strength, the exercise of an obstinate and whimsical disposition. It was precisely during a similar phase of her previous illness that her young companion acquired the favor she enjoyed. Fleurange felt it would have been a thousand times easier to have left her when she was nearly unconscious, than at a time when she was so indispensable that her services were in constant requisition. She alone could relieve her from the exertion of writing a letter or receiving a visit. She alone knew how to arrange her books and flowers, and the thousand trifles that surrounded her, in a way to please her critical eye and capricious taste. And, above all, it was owing to her that the evenings passed away without ennui while the princess was forbidden by the physician to receive any company except her most intimate friends. This was the time Fleurange was called upon to read. There was a charm in her voice and accent which the cultivated taste of the princess never wearied of.
“Really, Gabrielle,” said she, one evening, after the young girl had ended one of the passages she had selected—“really, it is an exquisite pleasure to hear you read. Come, George, attend to what we are doing, if you please. Lay aside that review in which you are so absorbed, and come nearer. She has just read me Dante’s sonnet,
‘Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare
La Donna mia,’[105]
in a way really worth listening to.”
There was a moment’s silence. A large screen veiled the light from the princess’ eyes, which were still weak. Fleurange was seated on the other side of this rampart. She blushed, for she was quite well aware it was not on the book, in which he pretended to be absorbed, the young man’s eyes were fastened while she was reading the sonnet she had just finished.
“I have not been as inattentive as you suppose, mother,” said George at length. “Besides, these lines would attract my attention under any circumstances:
‘E da per gli occhi una dolcezza al core
Ch’ intender non la puo chi non la prova.’”[106]
George had approached the table, and the expression of his eyes did not allow Fleurange to mistake the application of these lines.
Alas! for a month she had been forced to accept—let us use the right word—to enjoy the presence of him whom she had resolved to fly from, and been obliged for the time to lay aside all consideration of her own position in view of the duties which had devolved on her towards the princess. But her resolution had not for an instant faltered. Every day the sacrifice would doubtless be more painful, but consequently the more necessary. What she only waited for now was the propitious moment, and the means of accomplishing it.
The Princess Catherine was now really convalescent, and able to bear the displeasure Fleurange felt obliged to cause her. Therefore, the same evening the little scene we have just related took place, she resolved not to yield another day to the considerations that had hitherto restrained her. To remain any longer where she was would henceforth be deliberate treachery.