"Will the Marquise permit me to call on her again?"
"Yes, Count; and if you receive any news from Rome—from the Marquis and my brother, tell me of it, I beg you." The Count left, more in love than ever; and Aminta remained alone, unhappy, agitated, and a prey to instinctive and wretched thoughts.
It now becomes our duty to conduct the reader to a magnificent hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, and make him a spectator of a scene which occurred a few days after the conversation we have spoken of. We wish to introduce him to the beautiful girl of whom Dr. Matheus caught a glimpse from the windows of the laboratory. This girl was no longer the most brilliant rose of the parterre. Seated in a large arm-chair, near a window of the saloon, which looked out upon the garden, her pale complexion, and the hectic flush of her cheek, her red lips, and the dark ring about the eyes, indicated general indisposition. An old man sat near her, with one of her hands in his; while, with his eyes fixed on her, he seemed with despair to read the expression of intense suffering. The old man was the Duke d'Harcourt, and the invalid, his daughter Marie.
"Ah, papa! this is nothing but a horrid migraine to which I have long been subject. The pain in the chest which accompanies it, you know, never lasts long, and is almost always cured by the very presence of the kind doctor, whom we might almost fancy to be a sorcerer."
"The means he employs, my child, and which he has communicated to me, is not sorcery, but a science, scarcely known as yet, and the source of much dispute. I confess I had no great faith in it until experience had revealed to me its power and reality."
"And have you faith, papa, in the power of the doctor?" asked the young girl, with a singular accent.
"I believe, my child, in what I see. He benefits you, and therefore dissipates all my hesitation. Magnetism is not new; Mesmer, the able Foria, and afterwards many serious and learned men have inquired into it, and discovered undeniable virtues. Unfortunately, imposture and charlatanism soon took possession of it, and, therefore, it has been overburdened with ridicule and contempt. If it be a truth, as all I have seen induces me to think; if in the employment of this fluid there be means to assist nature, a studious man, who has any charity towards his fellows, should study before he decides on it, and reject nothing novel, as it may be, until he has proven it to be false or impotent."
"Here is the doctor!" said the Vicomte d'Harcourt, quickly opening the door, and introducing Von Apsberg.—"I have taken him from a grave consultation to see my sister." Hurrying to his sister, the Vicomte kissed her. Marie blushed; was not this blush caused, perhaps, by the coming of the doctor?—Was it caused by René's kiss? The heart alone can tell; and young women's hearts do not answer such questions very readily.
"Marie yet suffers," said the Duke to the false Matheus. "With you though, doctor, hope and health always return. For that reason we are unwilling you should ever leave us." It was now the doctor's turn to blush.
"You certainly," said he, "estimate my influence over the disease to be in proportion to my wish to soothe it. If such were really the case, you might be of good cheer, for my wishes are limitless."