And, without words, the duke understood it, respected her mute denial, and reverently drew back a step.
"Do you not wish to change your dress, you are utterly exhausted. If it will be a comfort to you to have me stay, I will wait till you have regained your strength. Then I will beg permission to breakfast with you!" he said with his wonted calmness.
"Yes, I thank you!" she answered--with a two-fold meaning, and left the room with a bearing more dignified than the duke had ever seen, as though she had an invisible companion of whom she was proud.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
ATTEMPTS TO RESCUE
The countess remained absent a long time, while the duke sat at the window of the boudoir gazing out into the frosty winter morning, but without seeing what was passing outside. Before him lay a shattered happiness, a marred destiny. The happiness was his, the destiny hers. "There is surely nothing weaker than a woman--even the strongest!" he thought, shaking his head mournfully. Ought we not to punish this personator of Christ, who used his mask to break into the citadel of our circle and steal what did not belong to him? Pshaw, how could the poor fellow help it if an eccentric woman out of ennui--ah, no, we should not think of it! But--what is to be done now? Shall I sacrifice this superb creature to an insipid prejudice, because she sacrificed herself and everything else to a childish delusion? Where is the man pure enough to condemn you because when you give, you give wholly, royally, and in your proud self-forgetfulness fling what others would outweigh with kingly crowns into the lap of a beggar who can offer you nothing in exchange, not even appreciation of your value--which he is too uncultured to perceive.
"Alas! such a woman--to be thrown away on such a man! And should I not save her? Should I weakly desert her--I, the only person who can forgive because I am the only one who understands her?--No! It would be against all the logic of destiny and reason, were I to suffer such a life to be wrecked by this religious humbug. What is the use of my cool brain, if I lose my composure now? Allons donc! I will bid defiance to fate and to every prejudice, clasp her in my arms, and destroy the divine farce!"
Such was the train of the duke's thoughts. But his pale face and joyless expression betrayed what he would not acknowledge to himself: that his happiness was shattered. He gathered up the fragments and tried to join them together--but with the secret grief with which we bear home some loved one who could not be witheld from a dangerous path, knowing that, though the broken limbs may be healed, he can never regain his former strength.
"So grave, Duke?" asked a voice which sent the blood to his heart. The countess had entered--her step unheard on the soft carpet.
He started up: "Madeleine--my poor Madeleine! I was thinking of you and your fate!"