"You can imagine, then, that a pamphlet of two hundred pages might afford a--slightly intriguing woman sufficient ground for persecution.""I see it all, madame, I understand it!" cried la Peyrade, with animation. "I believe that woman to be one of the elite of her sex, with as much mind and malice as Richelieu! Adorable magician! it is she who has set in motion the police and the gendarmes; but, more than that, it is she who withholds that cross the ministers were about to give.""If that be so," said the countess, "why struggle against her?""Ah! I struggle no longer," said la Peyrade. Then, with an assumed air of contrition, he added, "You must, indeed, HATE me, madame.""Not quite as much as you may think," replied the countess; "but, after all, suppose that I do hate you?""Ah! madame," cried la Peyrade, ardently, "I should then be the happiest of unhappy men; for that hatred would seem to me sweeter and more precious than your indifference. But you do not hate me; why should you feel to me that most blessed feminine sentiment which Scribe has depicted with such delicacy and wit?"Madame de Godollo did not answer immediately. She lowered her eyelids, and the deeper breathing of her bosom gave to her voice when she did speak a tremulous tone:--"The hatred of a woman!" she said. "Is a man of your stoicism able to perceive it?""Ah! yes, madame," replied la Peyrade, "I do indeed perceive it, but not to revolt against it; on the contrary, I bless the harshness that deigns to hurt me. Now that I know my beautiful and avowed enemy, Ishall not despair of touching her heart; for never again will I follow any road but the one that she points out to me, never will I march under any banner but hers. I shall wait--for her inspiration, to think; for her will, to will; for her commands, to act. In all things I will be her auxiliary,--more than that, her slave; and if she still repulses me with that dainty foot, that snowy hand, I will bear it resignedly, asking, in return for such obedience one only favor,--that of kissing the foot that spurns me, of bathing with tears the hand that threatens me."During this long cry of the excited heart, which the joy of triumph wrung from a nature so nervous and impressionable as that of the Provencal, he had slidden from his chair, and now knelt with one knee on the ground beside the countess, in the conventional attitude of the stage, which is, however, much more common in real life than people suppose.
"Rise, monsieur," said the countess, "and be so good as to answer me."Then, giving him a questioning look from beneath her beautiful frowning brows, she continued: "Have you well-weighed the outcome of the words you have just uttered? Have you measured the full extent of your pledge, and its depth? With your hand on your heart and on your conscience, are you a man to fulfil those words? Or are you one of the falsely humble and perfidious men who throw themselves at our feet only to make us lose the balance of our will and our reason?""I!" exclaimed la Peyrade; "never can I react against the fascination you have wielded over me from the moment of our first interview! Ah! madame, the more I have resisted, the more I have struggled, the more you ought to trust in my sincerity and its tardy expression. What Ihave said, I think; that which I think aloud to-day I have thought in my soul since the hour when I first had the honor of admittance to you; and the many days I have passed in struggling against this allurement have ended in giving me a firm and deliberate will, which understands itself, and is not cast down by your severity.""Severity?" said the countess; "possibly. But you ought to think of the kindness too. Question yourself carefully. We foreign women do not understand the careless ease with which a Frenchwoman enters upon a solemn engagement. To us, our YES is sacred; our word is a bond. We do and we will nothing by halves. The arms of my family bear a motto which seems significant under the present circumstances,--'All or Nothing'; that is saying much, and yet, perhaps, not enough.""That is how I understand my pledge," replied la Peyrade; "and on leaving this room my first step will be to break with that ignoble past which for an instant I seemed to hold in the balance against the intoxicating future you do not forbid me to expect.""No," said the countess, "do it calmly and advisedly; I do not like rash conduct; you will not please me by taking open steps. These Thuilliers are not really bad at heart; they humiliated you without knowing that they did so; their world is not yours. Is that their fault? Loosen the tie between you, but do not violently break it. And, above all, reflect. Your conversion to my beliefs is of recent date.
What man is certain of what his heart will say to him to-morrow?""Madame," said la Peyrade, "I am that man. We men of Southern blood do not love as you say a Frenchwoman loves.""But," said the countess, with a charming smile, "I thought it was hatred we were talking of.""Ah, madame," cried the barrister, "explained and understood as it has been, that word is still a thing that hurts me. Tell me rather, not that you love me, but that the words you deigned to say to me at our first interview were indeed the expression of your thoughts.""My friend," said the countess, dwelling on the word; "one of your moralists has said: 'There are persons who say, THAT IS or THAT ISNOT.' Do me the favor to count me among such persons."So saying, she held out her hand to her suitor with a charming gesture of modesty and grace. La Peyrade, quite beside himself, darted upon that beautiful hand and devoured it with kisses.
"Enough, child!" said the countess, gently freeing her imprisoned fingers; "adieu now, soon to meet again! Adieu! My headache, I think, has disappeared."La Peyrade picked up his hat, and seemed about to rush from the apartment; but at the door he turned and cast upon the handsome creature a look of tenderness. The countess made him, with her head, a graceful gesture of adieu; then, seeing that la Peyrade was inclined to return to her, she raised her forefinger as a warning to control himself and go.
La Peyrade turned and left the apartment.
