“And who would you like to live in it with you? You would not care to live in it all alone?” inquired Marcel, bewildered by these ambitious aspirations that left himself and his money-bags altogether out of the reckoning.
“Well, first, I should like to have petite mère, of course; then ... then I should ask the fairy for a brave and handsome prince, who would come and woo me as they do in the story-books; he should be handsome and clever and good, or I should not care for him; but if he was all that, I should love him with all my heart and soul, and we should be as happy as the days are long!”
Marcel heard her to the end, and then began to consider if there was not some one item in the capacious list that came within his possibilities.
“If another castle would do instead of this one—you know you never could have this one—I would go and buy it for you, Alba, and you might have as many pretty gauds to fill it as you liked. We have lots of gold and silver things and pictures up there”—nodding towards the Fortress—“and if I asked mother she would give them to us—to you, I mean.” Alba’s laugh rang like a silver echo all along the cliff.
“And the prince—where would you get him?”
“Must he be a prince? Would not a brave man who loved you and was ready to do your bidding in everything, who would spend his whole life in trying to make you happy—would not that do instead? Must he be a prince, Alba?”
He took her hand and held it, and she did not struggle to release it. They were standing at the foot of a rock that cast a long, black shadow far out upon the sea; the west wind blew into their faces; Alba’s scarlet hood had fallen back, and her hair drifted in a heavy stream behind her, as Marcel bent over her, waiting to hear his fate. He might have read it in her blank, scared looks, in her startled, reluctant attitude. If there had been hope for him, would she have shrunk away and drawn closer to the rock, as if asking it to protect her?
“I have been too hasty,” said the young man penitently; “I should have spoken to Mère Virginie first. Forgive me, Alba, and say only if I may go to her now and ask you for my wife?” He still held her hand, and, mistaking her silence, made an effort to slip his arm around her. The movement acted on Alba like the sting of a snake; she escaped from him with a cry, and sped along the cliff like a deer flying from the hunters.
“My child, you have been foolish, and so has Marcel; but there is no need to cry or be unhappy about it,” said Mère Virginie when Alba had sobbed out the terrible story on her breast. But Alba was not to be comforted. She had been living in dreamland, and now awoke to find the hard ground under her feet instead of golden clouds. Of course she had dreamt of love and lovers, and her heart, or that vague yearning which as yet took its place, had become enamored of the dreams, visions that lay safe beyond the disenchanting present, wrapped in the golden haze of distance; and now this rude awakening had dispelled them, and brought home to the dreamer that she had reached that border-land that lies between the mystery of morning and the revelation of noon; the pearly mists had rolled away in an instant, and the blaze of the mid-day sun was upon her, chasing the fairy phantoms and making sober realities pitilessly clear. She had been dreaming of a lover in some remote time and place, and, lo! he was at her side; he had been close to her all along—an ugly, common man, who seemed made on purpose to mock the visions of her fancy. And yet this incident, which threw Alba into such despair, had been for many a day the fond anticipation of her mother’s heart.
“Why need it frighten you to find that Marcel loves you and wants to have you for his little wife, my child?” said Virginie. “Don’t shudder and cling to me as if he were going to drag you away this very moment! You shall never leave me, unless you do it of your own free will. But remember, darling, that I may have to leave you; and then what will become of you?”