There was no answer. The lady had thrown herself upon a causeuse which stood just under a niche overgrown with ivy and lighted with lamps that gleamed through crimson shades, and was gazing steadily into the soft gloom, while a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. Our hero turned, after vainly waiting for a reply, and looked ardently at the beautiful picture.
The deepest silence pervaded the elegant apartment, only interrupted by the low plashing of a tiny fountain which fell into a marble basin filled with goldfish. Countless hyacinths exhaled their fragrance amid tall exotic plants, and between the heavy silken curtains and portières gleamed marble statues, which in the dim purple light seemed instinct with life. Everything breathed love and secret bliss. Allured by some magnetic attraction our hero knelt before the silent figure, and kissing the hand that hung by her side, whispered: "Great Heaven, if you weep how shall I find strength to conquer this moment? Oh, do not condemn me to suffer all the torments which only a fiend can devise for feeble human beings! If you have a heart that can weep, in mercy soften this farewell. If you really loved me, you would not by every alluring art seek to place me in a relation where your better self must renounce and despise me."
"What do I desire?" was the reply. "I wish to keep you, you who are the sole happiness of my life. I will not, cannot, see you leave me so coldly, cannot loose you from these arms, which in your person hold my very life. What will my husband lose if through you he receives what he does not know how to win himself: a happy wife? what will he lose if the smile I feign for him becomes real? What has he made me? A doll to amuse society, a puppet to minister to his empty vanity. What does he lose if the doll receives life? He has never asked for my heart,--do I rob him if I give that which he neither knows nor prizes to another who longs for it, and whom it can make happy?" She paused and pressed a light kiss on the listening ear of her friend. Bewildered by her musical whisper and warm breath, he leaned his burning cheek upon her breast and could find no reply.
She clasped him in a closer embrace and continued, in a tone of reproachful tenderness, "Now that our relation must be decided, you are so stern, so coldly conscientious, and yet--who woke this love in my frozen heart? Who implored me to prolong my stay in Germany? Who increased my passion by a thousand sweet nothings? Was it not you, who now reject me?"
"Alas! my wretched frivolity, it punishes me heavily," he murmured, with a deep sigh; "but as it has brought me to this pass, it shall at least lead me no further."
He tried to rise, but she still clung to him. "Do you no longer love me?" she cried, bursting into tears.
"Yes, my heart is glowing with love for you!" he exclaimed, clasping her in his arms. "But shall I become unprincipled because I have been thoughtless? Because I have taken peace from your heart, shall I rob you of a quiet conscience? Because ennui and ignoble desires have led me to form an unworthy friendship with D'Anneaud, your mindless, heartless husband, shall I now become traitor to his honor and my own?"
"Go, then," murmured the beautiful woman, removing her arms,--"go, if you have the strength to do so."
"You give me the power yourself, for you do not understand me. The more firmly you cling to me, the more surely my nobler being finds the strength to escape you. I am aware that I have two natures within me: one longs for you, but the other turns resolutely away, and at this moment solemnizes its greatest, most agonizing victory, since it compels me to resign you. Yes, its most agonizing victory," he repeated, clasping the angry woman to his heart with passionate love. "You weep, but my very heart is bleeding, beautiful, lovely woman; no tongue can express what I suffer."
For a moment they stood with their lips clinging together; at last with a violent effort he tore himself from her embrace and rushed out of the room without another word.