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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of L'Abbe Constantin, Complete, by Ludovic Halevy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: L'Abbe Constantin, Complete
+
+Author: Ludovic Halevy
+
+Last Updated: March 3, 2009
+Release Date: October 5, 2006 [EBook #3957]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK L'ABBE CONSTANTIN, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ABBE CONSTANTIN
+
+By LUDOVIC HALEVY
+
+
+With a Preface by E. LEGOUVE, of the French Academy
+
+
+
+
+LUDOVIC HALEVY
+
+Ludovic Halevy was born in Paris, January 1, 1834. His father was Leon
+Halevy, the celebrated author; his grandfather, Fromenthal, the eminent
+composer. Ludovic was destined for the civil service, and, after
+finishing his studies, entered successively the Department of State
+(1852); the Algerian Department (1858), and later on became editorial
+secretary of the Corps Legislatif (1860). When his patron, the Duc de
+Morny, died in 1865, Halevy resigned, giving up a lucrative position
+for the uncertain profession of a playwright: At this period he devoted
+himself exclusively to the theatre.
+
+He had already written plays as early as 1856, and had also tried his
+hand at fiction, but did not meet with very great success. Toward 1860,
+however, he became acquainted with Henri Meilhac, and with him formed
+a kind of literary union, lasting for almost twenty years, when Halevy
+rather abruptly abandoned the theatre and became a writer of fiction.
+
+We have seen such kinds of co-partnerships, for instance, in
+Beaumont and Fletcher; more recently in the beautiful French tales of
+Erckmann-Chatrian, and still later in the English novels of Besant and
+Rice.
+
+Some say it was a fortunate event for Meilhac; others assert that Halevy
+reaped a great profit by the union. Be this as it may, a great number
+of plays-drama, comedy, farce, opera, operetta and ballet--were jointly
+produced, as is shown by the title-pages of two score or more of their
+pieces. When Ludovic Halevy was a candidate for L'Academie--he entered
+that glorious body in 1884--the question was ventilated by Pailleron:
+"What was the author's literary relation in his union with Meilhac?" It
+was answered by M. Sarcey, who criticised the character and quality of
+the work achieved. Public opinion has a long time since brought in quite
+another verdict in the case.
+
+Halevy's cooperation endowed the plays of Meilhac with a fuller ethical
+richness--tempered them, so to speak, and made them real, for it can not
+be denied that Meilhac was inclined to extravagance.
+
+Halevy's novels are remarkable for the elegance of literary style,
+tenderness of spirit and keenness of observation. He excels in ironical
+sketches. He has often been compared to Eugene Sue, but his touch is
+lighter than Sue's, and his humor less unctuous. Most of his little
+sketches, originally written for La Vie Parisienne, were collected in
+his 'Monsieur et Madame Cardinal' (1873); and 'Les Petites Cardinal',
+(1880). They are not intended 'virginibus puerisque', and the author's
+attitude is that of a half-pitying, half-contemptuous moralist, yet the
+virility of his criticism has brought him immortality.
+
+Personal recollections of the great war are to be found in 'L'Invasion'
+(1872); and 'Notes et Souvenirs', 1871-1872 (1889). Most extraordinary,
+however, was the success of 'L'Abbe Constantin' (1882), crowned by
+the Academy, which has gone through no less than one hundred and fifty
+editions up to 1904, and ranks as one of the greatest successes of
+contemporaneous literature. It is, indeed, his 'chef-d'oeuvre', very
+delicate, earnest, and at the same time ironical, a most entrancing
+family story. It was then that the doors of the French Academy opened
+wide before Halevy. 'L'Abbe Constantin' was adapted for the stage by
+Cremieux and Decourcelle (Le Gymnase, 1882). Further notable novels are:
+'Criquette, Deux Mariages, Un Grand Mariage, Un Mariage d'Amour', all in
+1883; 'Princesse, Les Trois Coups de Foudre, Mon Camarade Moussard', all
+in 1884; and the romances, 'Karikari (1892), and Mariette (1893)'. Since
+that time, I think, Halevy has not published anything of importance.
+
+                    E. LEGOUVE
+                  de l'Academie Francaise.
+
+
+
+
+THE ABBE CONSTANTIN
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 1.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE SALE OF LONGUEVAL
+
+With a step still valiant and firm, an old priest walked along the dusty
+road in the full rays of a brilliant sun. For more than thirty years the
+Abbe Constantin had been Cure of the little village which slept there in
+the plain, on the banks of a slender stream called La Lizotte. The Abbe
+Constantin was walking by the wall which surrounded the park of the
+castle of Longueval; at last he reached the entrance-gate, which rested
+high and massive on two ancient pillars of stone, embrowned and gnawed
+by time. The Cure stopped, and mournfully regarded two immense blue
+posters fixed on the pillars.
+
+The posters announced that on Wednesday, May 18, 1881, at one o'clock
+P.M., would take place, before the Civil Tribunal of Souvigny, the sale
+of the domain of Longueval, divided into four lots:
+
+1. The castle of Longueval, its dependencies, fine pieces of water,
+extensive offices, park of 150 hectares in extent, completely surrounded
+by a wall, and traversed by the little river Lizotte. Valued at 600,000
+francs.
+
+2. The farm of Blanche-Couronne, 300 hectares, valued at 500,000 francs.
+
+3. The farm of La Rozeraie, 250 hectares, valued at 400,000 francs.
+
+4. The woods and forests of La Mionne, containing 450 hectares, valued
+at 550,000 francs.
+
+And these four amounts, added together at the foot of the bill, gave the
+respectable sum of 2,050,000 francs.
+
+Then they were really going to dismember this magnificent domain, which,
+escaping all mutilation, had for more than two centuries always been
+transmitted intact from father to son in the family of Longueval. The
+placards also announced that after the temporary division into four
+lots, it would be possible to unite them again, and offer for sale the
+entire domain; but it was a very large morsel, and, to all appearance,
+no purchaser would present himself.
+
+The Marquise de Longueval had died six months before; in 1873 she
+had lost her only son, Robert de Longueval; the three heirs were the
+grandchildren of the Marquise: Pierre, Helene, and Camille. It had been
+found necessary to offer the domain for sale, as Helene and Camille were
+minors. Pierre, a young man of three-and-twenty, had lived rather fast,
+was already half-ruined, and could not hope to redeem Longueval.
+
+It was mid-day. In an hour it would have a new master, this old castle
+of Longueval; and this master, who would he be? What woman would take
+the place of the old Marquise in the chimney-corner of the grand salon,
+all adorned with ancient tapestry?--the old Marquise, the friend of the
+old priest. It was she who had restored the church; it was she who had
+established and furnished a complete dispensary at the vicarage under
+the care of Pauline, the Cure's servant; it was she who, twice a week,
+in her great barouche, all crowded with little children's clothes and
+thick woolen petticoats, came to fetch the Abbe Constantin to make with
+him what she called 'la chasse aux pauvres'.
+
+The old priest continued his walk, musing over all this; then he
+thought, too--the greatest saints have their little weaknesses--he
+thought, too, of the beloved habits of thirty years thus rudely
+interrupted. Every Thursday and every Sunday he had dined at the castle.
+How he had been petted, coaxed, indulged! Little Camille--she was eight
+years old--would come and sit on his knee and say to him:
+
+"You know, Monsieur le Cure, it is in your church that I mean to be
+married, and grandmamma will send such heaps of flowers to fill, quite
+fill the church--more than for the month of Mary. It will be like a
+large garden--all white, all white, all white!"
+
+The month of Mary! It was then the month of Mary. Formerly, at this
+season, the altar disappeared under the flowers brought from the
+conservatories of Longueval. None this year were on the altar, except
+a few bouquets of lily-of-the-valley and white lilac in gilded china
+vases. Formerly, every Sunday at high mass, and every evening during the
+month of Mary, Mademoiselle Hebert, the reader to Madame de Longueval,
+played the little harmonium given by the Marquise. Now the poor
+harmonium, reduced to silence, no longer accompanied the voices of the
+choir or the children's hymns. Mademoiselle Marbeau, the postmistress,
+would, with all her heart, have taken the place of Mademoiselle Hebert,
+but she dared not, though she was a little musical! She was afraid of
+being remarked as of the clerical party, and denounced by the Mayor, who
+was a Freethinker. That might have been injurious to her interests, and
+prevented her promotion.
+
+He had nearly reached the end of the wall of the park--that park of
+which every corner was known to the old priest. The road now followed
+the banks of the Lizotte, and on the other side of the little stream
+stretched the fields belonging to the two farms; then, still farther
+off, rose the dark woods of La Mionne.
+
+Divided! The domain was going to be divided! The heart of the poor
+priest was rent by this bitter thought. All that for thirty years had
+been inseparable, indivisible to him. It was a little his own, his very
+own, his estate, this great property. He felt at home on the lands
+of Longueval. It had happened more than once that he had stopped
+complacently before an immense cornfield, plucked an ear, removed the
+husk, and said to himself:
+
+"Come! the grain is fine, firm, and sound. This year we shall have a
+good harvest!"
+
+And with a joyous heart he would continue his way through his fields,
+his meadows, his pastures; in short, by every chord of his heart, by
+every tie of his life, by all his habits, his memories, he clung to this
+domain whose last hour had come.
+
+The Abbe perceived in the distance the farm of Blanche-Couronne; its
+red-tiled roofs showed distinctly against the verdure of the forest.
+There, again, the Cure was at home. Bernard, the farmer of the Marquise,
+was his friend; and when the old priest was delayed in his visits to the
+poor and sick, when the sun was sinking below the horizon, and the
+Abbe began to feel a little fatigued in his limbs, and a sensation of
+exhaustion in his stomach, he stopped and supped with Bernard, regaled
+himself with a savory stew and potatoes, and emptied his pitcher of
+cider; then, after supper, the farmer harnessed his old black mare to
+his cart, and took the vicar back to Longueval. The whole distance they
+chatted and quarrelled. The Abbe reproached the farmer with not going to
+mass, and the latter replied:
+
+"The wife and the girls go for me. You know very well, Monsieur le Cure,
+that is how it is with us. The women have enough religion for the men.
+They will open the gates of paradise for us."
+
+And he added maliciously, while giving a touch of the whip to his old
+black mare:
+
+"If there is one!"
+
+The Cure sprang from his seat.
+
+"What! if there is one! Of a certainty there is one."
+
+"Then you will be there, Monsieur le Cure. You say that is not certain,
+and I say it is. You will be there, you will be there, at the gate,
+on the watch for your parishioners, and still busy with their little
+affairs; and you will say to St. Peter--for it is St. Peter, isn't it,
+who keeps the keys of paradise?"
+
+"Yes, it is St. Peter."
+
+"Well, you will say to him, to St. Peter, if he wants to shut the door
+in my face under the pretense that I did not go to mass--you will say to
+him: 'Bah! let him in all the same. It is Bernard, one of the farmers
+of Madame la Marquise, an honest man. He was common councilman, and
+he voted for the maintenance of the sisters when they were going to be
+expelled from the village school.' That will touch St. Peter, who will
+answer: 'Well, well, you may pass, Bernard, but it is only to please
+Monsieur le Cure.' For you will be Monsieur le Cure up there, and Cure
+of Longueval, too, for paradise itself would be dull for you if you must
+give up being Cure of Longueval."
+
+Cure of Longueval! Yes, all his life he had been nothing but Cure of
+Longueval, had never dreamed of anything else, had never wished to be
+anything else. Three or four times excellent livings, with one or two
+curates, had been offered to him, but he had always refused them. He
+loved his little church, his little village, his little vicarage. There
+he had it all to himself, saw to everything himself; calm, tranquil, he
+went and came, summer and winter, in sunshine or storm, in wind or rain.
+His frame became hardened by fatigue and exposure, but his soul remained
+gentle, tender, and pure.
+
+He lived in his vicarage, which was only a larger laborer's cottage,
+separated from the church by the churchyard. When the Cure mounted the
+ladder to train his pear and peach trees, over the top of the wall he
+perceived the graves over which he had said the last prayer, and cast
+the first spadeful of earth. Then, while continuing his work, he said in
+his heart a little prayer for the repose of those among his dead whose
+fate disturbed him, and who might be still detained in purgatory. He had
+a tranquil and childlike faith.
+
+But among these graves there was one which, oftener than all the others,
+received his visits and his prayers. It was the tomb of his old
+friend Dr. Reynaud, who had died in his arms in 1871, and under what
+circumstances! The doctor had been like Bernard; he never went to mass
+or to confession; but he was so good, so charitable, so compassionate
+to the suffering. This was the cause of the Cure's great anxiety, of his
+great solicitude. His friend Reynaud, where was he? Where was he? Then
+he called to mind the noble life of the country doctor, all made up of
+courage and self-denial; he recalled his death, above all his death, and
+said to himself:
+
+"In paradise; he can be nowhere but in paradise. The good God may have
+sent him to purgatory just for form's sake--but he must have delivered
+him after five minutes."
+
+All this passed through the mind of the old man, as he continued his
+walk toward Souvigny. He was going to the town, to the solicitor of the
+Marquise, to inquire the result of the sale; to learn who were to be the
+new masters of the castle of Longueval. The Abbe had still about a mile
+to walk before reaching the first houses of Souvigny, and was passing
+the park of Lavardens when he heard, above his head, voices calling to
+him:
+
+"Monsieur le Cure, Monsieur le Cure."
+
+At this spot adjoining the wall, a long alley of limetrees bordered the
+terrace, and the Abbe, raising his head, perceived Madame de Lavardens,
+and her son Paul.
+
+"Where are you going, Monsieur le Cure?" asked the Countess.
+
+"To Souvigny, to the Tribunal, to learn--"
+
+"Stay here--Monsieur de Larnac is coming after the sale to tell me the
+result."
+
+The Abbe Constantin joined them on the terrace.
+
+Gertrude de Lannilis, Countess de Lavardens, had been very unfortunate.
+At eighteen she had been guilty of a folly, the only one of her life,
+but that one--irreparable. She had married for love, in a burst of
+enthusiasm and exaltation, M. de Lavardens, one of the most fascinating
+and brilliant men of his time. He did not love her, and only married her
+from necessity; he had devoured his patrimonial fortune to the very last
+farthing, and for two or three years had supported himself by various
+expedients. Mademoiselle de Lannilis knew all that, and had no illusions
+on these points, but she said to herself:
+
+"I will love him so much, that he will end by loving me."
+
+Hence all her misfortunes. Her existence might have been tolerable, if
+she had not loved her husband so much; but she loved him too much. She
+had only succeeded in wearying him by her importunities and tenderness.
+He returned to his former life, which had been most irregular. Fifteen
+years had passed thus, in a long martyrdom, supported by Madame de
+Lavardens with all the appearance of passive resignation. Nothing ever
+could distract her from, or cure her of, the love which was destroying
+her.
+
+M. de Lavardens died in 1869; he left a son fourteen years of age, in
+whom were already visible all the defects and all the good qualities of
+his father. Without being seriously affected, the fortune of Madame
+de Lavardens was slightly compromised, slightly diminished. Madame de
+Lavardens sold her mansion in Paris, retired to the country, where she
+lived with strict economy, and devoted herself to the education of her
+son.
+
+But here again grief and disappointment awaited her. Paul de Lavardens
+was intelligent, amiable, and affectionate, but thoroughly rebellious
+against any constraint, and any species of work. He drove to despair
+three or four tutors who vainly endeavored to force something serious
+into his head, went up to the military college of Saint-Cyr, failed at
+the examination, and began to devour in Paris, with all the haste and
+folly possible, 200,000 or 300,000 francs.
+
+That done, he enlisted in the first regiment of the Chasseurs d'Afrique,
+had in the very beginning of his military career the good fortune to
+make one of an expeditionary column sent into the Sahara, distinguished
+himself, soon became quartermaster, and at the end of three years was
+about to be appointed sub-lieutenant, when he was captivated by a
+young person who played the 'Fille de Madame Angot', at the theatre in
+Algiers.
+
+Paul had finished his time, he quitted the service, and went to Paris
+with his charmer.... then it was a dancer.... then it was an actress....
+then a circus-rider. He tried life in every form. He led the brilliant
+and miserable existence of the unoccupied.
+
+But it was only three or four months that he passed in Paris each year.
+His mother made him an allowance Of 30,000 francs, and had declared to
+him that never, while she lived, should he have another penny before
+his marriage. He knew his mother, he knew he must consider her words as
+serious. Thus, wishing to make a good figure in Paris, and lead a merry
+life, he spent his 30,000 francs in three months, and then docilely
+returned to Lavardens, where he was "out at grass." He spent his time
+hunting, fishing, and riding with the officers of the artillery regiment
+quartered at Souvigny. The little provincial milliners and grisettes
+replaced, without rendering him obvious of, the little singers and
+actresses of Paris. By searching for them, one may still find grisettes
+in country towns, and Paul de Lavardens sought assiduously.
+
+As soon as the Cure had reached Madame de Lavardens, she said: "Without
+waiting for Monsieur de Larnac, I can tell you the names of the
+purchasers of the domain of Longueval. I am quite easy on the subject,
+and have no doubt of the success of our plan. In order to avoid any
+foolish disputes, we have agreed among ourselves, that is, among our
+neighbors, Monsieur de Larnac, Monsieur Gallard, a great Parisian
+banker, and myself. Monsieur de Larnac will have La Mionne, Monsieur
+Gallard the castle and Blanche-Couronne, and La Rozeraie. I know you,
+Monsieur le Cure, you will be anxious about your poor, but comfort
+yourself. These Gallards are rich and will give you plenty of money."
+
+At this moment a cloud of dust appeared on the road, from it emerged a
+carriage.
+
+"Here comes Monsieur de Larnac!" cried Paul, "I know his ponies!"
+
+All three hurriedly descended from the terrace and returned to the
+castle. They arrived there just as M. de Larnac's carriage drove up to
+the entrance.
+
+"Well?" asked Madame de Lavardens.
+
+"Well!" replied M. de Larnac, "we have nothing."
+
+"What? Nothing?" cried Madame de Lavardens, very pale and agitated.
+
+"Nothing, nothing; absolutely nothing--the one or the other of us."
+
+And M. de Larnac springing from his carriage, related what had taken
+place at the sale before the Tribunal of Souvigny.
+
+"At first," he said, "everything went upon wheels. The castle went to
+Monsieur Gallard for 650,000 francs. No competitor--a raise of fifty
+francs had been sufficient. On the other hand, there was a little battle
+for Blanche-Couronne. The bids rose from 500,000 francs to 520,000
+francs, and again Monsieur Gallard was victorious. Another and more
+animated battle for La Rozeraie; at last it was knocked down to you,
+Madame, for 455,000 francs.... I got the forest of La Mionne without
+opposition at a rise of 100 francs. All seemed over, those present had
+risen, our solicitors were surrounded with persons asking the names of
+the purchasers."
+
+"Monsieur Brazier, the judge intrusted with the sale, desired silence,
+and the bailiff of the court offered the four lots together for
+2,150,000 or 2,160,000 francs, I don't remember which. A murmur passed
+through the assembly. 'No one will bid' was heard on all sides. But
+little Gibert, the solicitor, who was seated in the first row, and
+till then had given no sign of life, rose and said calmly, 'I have a
+purchaser for the four lots together at 2,200,000 francs.' This was like
+a thunderbolt. A tremendous clamor arose, followed by a dead silence.
+The hall was filled with farmers and laborers from the neighborhood.
+Two million francs! So much money for the land threw them into a sort of
+respectful stupor. However, Monsieur Gallard, bending toward Sandrier,
+the solicitor who had bid for him, whispered something in his ear. The
+struggle began between Gibert and Sandrier. The bids rose to 2,500,000
+francs. Monsieur Gallard hesitated for a moment--decided--continued up
+to 3,000,000. Then he stopped and the whole went to Gibert. Every one
+rushed on him, they surrounded--they crushed him: 'The name, the name of
+the purchaser?' 'It is an American,' replied Gibert, 'Mrs. Scott.'"
+
+"Mrs. Scott!" cried Paul de Lavardens.
+
+"You know her?" asked Madame de Lavardens.
+
+"Do I know her?--do I--not at all. But I was at a ball at her house six
+weeks ago."
+
+"At a ball at her house! and you don't know her! What sort of woman is
+she, then?"
+
+"Charming, delightful, ideal, a miracle!"
+
+"And is there a Mr. Scott?"
+
+"Certainly, a tall, fair man. He was at his ball. They pointed him out
+to me. He bowed at random right and left. He was not much amused, I
+will answer for it. He looked at us as if he were thinking, 'Who are
+all these people? What are they doing at my house?' We went to see Mrs.
+Scott and Miss Percival, her sister. And certainly it was well worth the
+trouble."
+
+"These Scotts," said Madame de Lavardens, addressing M. de Larnac, "do
+you know who they are?"
+
+"Yes, Madame, I know. Mr. Scott is an American, possessing a colossal
+fortune, who settled himself in Paris last year. As soon as their name
+was mentioned, I understood that the victory had never been doubtful.
+Gallard was beaten beforehand. The Scotts began by buying a house in
+Paris for 2,000,000 francs, it is near the Parc Monceau."
+
+"Yes, Rue Murillo," said Paul; "I tell you I went to a ball there. It
+was--"
+
+"Let Monsieur de Larnac speak. You can tell us presently about the ball
+at Mrs. Scott's."
+
+"Well, now, imagine my Americans established in Paris," continued M. de
+Larnac, "and the showers of gold begun. In the orthodox parvenu style
+they amuse themselves with throwing handfuls of gold out of window.
+Their great wealth is quite recent, they say; ten years ago Mrs. Scott
+begged in the streets of New York."
+
+"Begged!"
+
+"They say so. Then she married this Scott, the son of a New York banker,
+and all at once a successful lawsuit put into their hands not millions,
+but tens of millions. Somewhere in America they have a silver mine, but
+a genuine mine, a real mine--a mine with silver in it. Ah! we shall
+see what luxury will reign at Longueval! We shall all look like paupers
+beside them! It is said that they have 100,000 francs a day to spend."
+
+"Such are our neighbors!" cried Madame de Lavardens. "An adventuress!
+and that is the least of it--a heretic, Monsieur l'Abbe, a Protestant!"
+
+A heretic! a Protestant! Poor Cure; it was indeed that of which he had
+immediately thought on hearing the words, "An American, Mrs. Scott." The
+new chatelaine of Longueval would not go to mass. What did it matter
+to him that she had been a beggar? What did it matter to him if she
+possessed tens and tens of millions? She was not a Catholic. He would
+never again baptize children born at Longueval, and the chapel in the
+castle, where he had so often said mass, would be transformed into a
+Protestant oratory, which would echo only the frigid utterances of a
+Calvinistic or Lutheran pastor.
+
+Every one was distressed, disappointed, overwhelmed; but in the midst of
+the general depression Paul stood radiant.
+
+"A charming heretic at all events," said he, "or rather two charming
+heretics. You should see the two sisters on horseback in the Bois, with
+two little grooms behind them not higher than that."
+
+"Come, Paul, tell us all you know. Describe the ball of which you speak.
+How did you happen to go to a ball at these Americans?"
+
+"By the greatest chance. My Aunt Valentine was at home that night; I
+looked in about ten o'clock. Well, Aunt Valentine's Wednesdays are not
+exactly scenes of wild enjoyment, I give you my word! I had been there
+about twenty minutes when I caught sight of Roger de Puymartin escaping
+furtively. I caught him in the hall and said:
+
+"'We will go home together.'
+
+"'Oh! I am not going home.'
+
+"'Where are you going?'
+
+"'To the ball.'
+
+"'Where?'
+
+"'At Mrs. Scott's. Will you come?'
+
+"'But I have not been invited.'
+
+"'Neither have I'
+
+"'What! not invited?'
+
+"'No. I am going with one of my friends.'
+
+"'And does your friend know them?'
+
+"'Scarcely; but enough to introduce us. Come along; you will see Mrs.
+Scott.'
+
+"'Oh! I have seen her on horseback in the Bois.'
+
+"'But she does not wear a low gown on horseback; you have not seen
+her shoulders, and they are shoulders which ought to be seen. There is
+nothing better in Paris at this moment.'
+
+"And I went to the ball, and I saw Mrs. Scott's red hair, and I saw Mrs.
+Scott's white shoulders, and I hope to see them again when there are
+balls at Longueval."
+
+"Paul!" said Madame de Lavardens, pointing to the Abbe.
+
+"Oh! Monsieur l'Abbe, I beg a thousand pardons. Have I said anything? It
+seems to me--"
+
+The poor old priest had heard nothing; his thoughts were elsewhere.
+Already he saw, in the village streets, the Protestant pastor from the
+castle stopping before each house, and slipping under the doors little
+evangelical pamphlets.
+
+Continuing his account, Paul launched into an enthusiastic description
+of the mansion, which was a marvel--
+
+"Of bad taste and ostentation," interrupted Madame de Lavardens.
+
+"Not at all, mother, not at all; nothing startling, nothing loud. It is
+admirably furnished, everything done with elegance and originality. An
+incomparable conservatory, flooded with electric light; the buffet was
+placed in the conservatory under a vine laden with grapes, which one
+could gather by handfuls, and in the month of April! The accessories
+of the cotillon cost, it appears, more than 400,000 francs. Ornaments,
+'bon-bonnieres', delicious trifles, and we were begged to accept them.
+For my part I took nothing, but there were many who made no scruple.
+That evening Puymartin told me Mrs. Scott's history, but it was not at
+all like Monsieur de Larnac's story. Roger said that, when quite little,
+Mrs. Scott had been stolen from her family by some acrobats, and that
+her father had found her in a travelling circus, riding on barebacked
+horses and jumping through paper hoops."
+
+"A circus-rider!" cried Madame de Lavardens, "I should have preferred
+the beggar."
+
+"And while Roger was telling me this Family Herald romance, I saw
+approaching from the end of a gallery a wonderful cloud of lace and
+satin; it surrounded this rider from a wandering circus, and I admired
+those shoulders, those dazzling shoulders, on which undulated a necklace
+of diamonds as big as the stopper of a decanter. They say that the
+Minister of Finance had sold secretly to Mrs. Scott half the crown
+diamonds, and that was how, the month before, he had been able to show a
+surplus of 1,500,000 francs in the budget. Add to all this that the lady
+had a remarkably good air, and that the little acrobat seemed perfectly
+at home in the midst of all this splendor."
+
+Paul was going so far that his mother was obliged to stop him. Before M.
+de Larnac, who was excessively annoyed and disappointed, he showed too
+plainly his delight at the prospect of having this marvellous American
+for a near neighbor.
+
+The Abbe Constantin was preparing to return to Longueval, but Paul,
+seeing him ready to start, said:
+
+"No! no! Monsieur le Cure, you must not think of walking back to
+Longueval in the heat of the day. Allow me to drive you home. I am
+really grieved to see you so cast down, and will try my best to amuse
+you. Oh! if you were ten times a saint I would make you laugh at my
+stories."
+
+And half an hour after, the two--the Cure and Paul--drove side by side
+in the direction of the village. Paul talked, talked, talked. His mother
+was not there to check or moderate his transports, and his joy was
+overflowing.
+
+"Now, look here, Monsieur l'Abbe, you are wrong to take things in this
+tragic manner. Stay, look at my little mare, how well she trots! what
+good action she has! You have not seen her before? What do you think
+I paid for her? Four hundred francs. I discovered her a fortnight ago,
+between the shafts of a market gardener's cart. She is a treasure. I
+assure you she can do sixteen miles an hour, and keep one's hands full
+all the time. Just see how she pulls. Come, tot-tot-tot! You are not in
+a hurry, Monsieur l'Abbe, I hope. Let us return through the wood; the
+fresh air will do you good. Oh! Monsieur l'Abbe, if you only knew what
+a regard I have for you, and respect, too. I did not talk too much
+nonsense before you just now, did I? I should be so sorry--"
+
+"No, my child, I heard nothing."
+
+"Well, we will take the longest way round."
+
+After having turned to the left in the wood, Paul resumed his
+communications.
+
+"I was saying, Monsieur l'Abbe," he went on, "that you are wrong to
+take things so seriously. Shall I tell you what I think? This is a very
+fortunate affair."
+
+"Very fortunate?"
+
+"Yes, very fortunate. I would rather see the Scotts at Longueval
+than the Gallards. Did you not hear Monsieur de Larnac reproach these
+Americans with spending their money foolishly. It is never foolish to
+spend money. The folly lies in keeping it. Your poor for I am perfectly
+sure that it is your poor of whom you are thinking--your poor have made
+a good thing of it to-day. That is my opinion. The religion? Well,
+they will not go to mass, and that will be a grief to you, that is only
+natural; but they will send you money, plenty of money, and you will
+take it, and you will be quite right in doing so. You will see that
+you will not say no. There will be gold raining over the whole place;
+a movement, a bustle, carriages with four horses, postilions, powdered
+footmen, paper chases, hunting parties, balls, fireworks, and here in
+this very spot I shall perhaps find Paris again before long. I shall
+see once more the two riders, and the two little grooms of whom I was
+speaking just now. If you only knew how well those two sisters look on
+horseback! One morning I went right round the Bois de Boulogne behind
+them; I fancy I can see them still. They had high hats, and little black
+veils drawn very tightly over their faces, and long riding-habits made
+in the princess form, with a single seam right down the back; and
+a woman must be awfully well made to wear a riding-habit like that,
+because you see, Monsieur l'Abbe, with a habit of that cut no deception
+is possible."
+
+For some moments the Cure had not been listening to Paul's discourse.
+They had entered a long, perfectly straight avenue, and at the end of
+this avenue the Cure saw a horseman galloping along.
+
+"Look," said the Cure to Paul, "your eyes are better than mine. Is not
+that Jean?"
+
+"Yes, it is jean. I know his gray mare."
+
+Paul loved horses, and before looking at the rider looked at the horse.
+It was indeed Jean, who, when he saw in the distance the Cure and Paul
+de Lavardens, waved in the air his kepi adorned with two golden stripes.
+Jean was lieutenant in the regiment of artillery quartered at Souvigny.
+
+Some moments after he stopped by the little carriage, and, addressing
+the Cure, said:
+
+"I have just been to your house, 'mon parrain'. Pauline told me that you
+had gone to Souvigny about the sale. Well, who has bought the castle?"
+
+"An American, Mrs. Scott."
+
+"And Blanche-Couronne?"
+
+"The same, Mrs. Scott."
+
+"And La Rozeraie?"
+
+"Mrs. Scott again."
+
+"And the forest? Mrs. Scott again?"
+
+"You have said it," replied Paul, "and I know Mrs. Scott, and I can
+promise you that there will be something going on at Longueval. I will
+introduce you. Only it is distressing to Monsieur l'Abbe because she is
+an American--a Protestant."
+
+"Ah! that is true," said Jean, sympathizingly. "However, we will talk
+about it to-morrow. I am going to dine with you, godfather; I have
+warned Pauline of my visit; no time to stop to-day. I am on duty, and
+must be in quarters at three o'clock."
+
+"Stables?" asked Paul.
+
+"Yes. Good-by, Paul. To-morrow, godfather."
+
+The lieutenant galloped away. Paul de Lavardens gave his little horse
+her head.
+
+"What a capital fellow Jean is!" said Paul.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed!"
+
+"There is no one on earth better than Jean."
+
+"No, no one."
+
+The Cure turned round to take another look at Jean, who was almost lost
+in the depths of the forest.
+
+"Oh, yes, there is you, Monsieur le Cure."
+
+"No, not me! not me!"
+
+"Well, Monsieur l'Abbe, shall I tell you what I think? I think there is
+no one better than you two--you and Jean. That is the truth, if I must
+tell you. Oh! what a splendid place for a trot! I shall let Niniche go;
+I call her Niniche."
+
+With the point of his whip Paul caressed the flank of Niniche, who
+started off at full speed, and Paul, delighted, cried:
+
+"Just look at her action, Monsieur l'Abbe! just look at her action! So
+regular--just like clockwork. Lean over and look."
+
+To please Paul de Lavardens the Abbe Constantin did lean over and look
+at Niniche's action, but the old priest's thoughts were far away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE NEW CHATELAINE
+
+This sub-lieutenant of artillery was called Jean Reynaud. He was the son
+of a country doctor who slept in the churchyard of Longueval.
+
+In 1846, when the Abbe' Constantin took possession of his little living,
+the grandfather of Jean was residing in a pleasant cottage on the
+road to Souvigny, between the picturesque old castles of Longueval and
+Lavardens.
+
+Marcel, the son of that Dr. Reynaud, was finishing his medical studies
+in Paris. He possessed great industry, and an elevation of sentiment and
+mind extremely rare. He passed his examinations with great distinction,
+and had decided to fix his abode in Paris and tempt fortune there,
+and everything seemed to promise him the most prosperous and brilliant
+career, when, in 1852, he received the news of his father's death--he
+had been struck down by a fit of apoplexy. Marcel hurried to Longueval,
+overwhelmed with grief, for he adored his father. He spent a month with
+his mother, and then spoke of the necessity of returning to Paris.
+
+"That is true," said his mother; "you must go."
+
+"What! I must go! We must go, you mean. Do you think that I would leave
+you here alone? I shall take you with me."
+
+"To live in Paris; to leave the place where I was born, where your
+father lived, where he died? I could never do it, my child, never! Go
+alone; your life, your future, are there. I know you; I know that you
+will never forget me, that you will come and see me often, very often."
+
+"No, mother," he answered; "I shall stay here."
+
+And he stayed.
+
+His hopes, his ambitions, all in one moment vanished. He saw only one
+thing--duty--the duty of not abandoning his aged mother. In duty, simply
+accepted and simply discharged, he found happiness. After all, it is
+only thus that one does find happiness.
+
+Marcel bowed with courage and good grace to his new existence. He
+continued his father's life, entering the groove at the very spot where
+he had left it. He devoted himself without regret to the obscure career
+of a country doctor. His father had left him a little land and a little
+money; he lived in the most simple manner possible, and one half of his
+life belonged to the poor, from whom he would never receive a penny.
+
+This was his only luxury.
+
+He found in his way a young girl, charming, penniless, and alone in the
+world. He married her. This was in 1855, and the following year brought
+to Dr. Reynaud a great sorrow and a great joy--the death of his old
+mother and the birth of his son Jean.
+
+At an interval of six weeks, the Abby Constantin recited the prayers
+for the dead over the grave of the grandmother, and was present in the
+position of godfather at the baptism of the grandson.
+
+In consequence of constantly meeting at the bedside of the suffering
+and dying, the priest and the doctor had been strongly attracted to each
+other. They instinctively felt that they belonged to the same family,
+the same race--the race of the tender, the just, and the benevolent.
+
+Year followed year--calm, peaceful, fully occupied in labor and duty.
+Jean was no longer an infant. His father gave him his first lessons in
+reading and writing, the priest his first lessons in Latin. Jean was
+intelligent and industrious. He made so much progress that the two
+professors--particularly the Cure--found themselves at the end of a few
+years rather cast into the shade by their pupil. It was at this moment
+that the Countess, after the death of her husband, came to settle at
+Lavardens. She brought with her a tutor for her son Paul, a very nice,
+but very lazy little fellow. The two children were of the same age; they
+had known each other from their earliest years.
+
+Madame de Lavardens had a great regard for Dr. Reynaud, and one day she
+made him the following proposal:
+
+"Send Jean to me every morning," said she, "I will send him home in
+the evening. Paul's tutor is a very accomplished man; he will make the
+children work together. It will be rendering me a real service. Jean
+will set Paul a good example."
+
+Things were thus arranged, and the little bourgeois set the little
+nobleman a most excellent example of industry and application, but this
+excellent example was not followed.
+
+The war broke out. On November 14th, at seven o'clock in the morning,
+the mobiles of Souvigny assembled in the great square of the town; their
+chaplain was the Abbe Constantin, their surgeon-major, Dr. Reynaud. The
+same idea had come at the same moment to both; the priest was sixty-two,
+the doctor fifty.
+
+When they started, the battalion followed the road which led through
+Longueval, and which passed before the doctor's house. Madame Reynaud
+and Jean were waiting by the roadside. The child threw himself into his
+father's arms.
+
+"Take me, too, papa! take me, too!"
+
+Madame Reynaud wept. The doctor held them both in a long embrace, then
+he continued his way.
+
+A hundred steps farther the road made a sharp curve. The doctor turned,
+cast one long look at his wife and child-the last; he was never to see
+them again.
+
+On January 8, 1871, the mobiles of Souvigny attacked the village of
+Villersexel, occupied by the Prussians, who had barricaded themselves.
+The firing began. A mobile who marched in the front rank received a
+ball in the chest and fell. There was a short moment of trouble and
+hesitation.
+
+"Forward! forward!" shouted the officers.
+
+The men passed over the body of their comrade, and under a hail of
+bullets entered the town.
+
+Dr. Reynaud and the Abbe Constantin marched with the troops; they
+stopped by the wounded man; the blood was rushing in floods from his
+mouth.
+
+"There is nothing to be done," said the doctor. "He is dying; he belongs
+to you."
+
+The priest knelt down by the dying man, and the doctor rose to go toward
+the village. He had not taken ten steps when he stopped, beat the air
+with both hands, and fell all at once to the ground. The priest ran to
+him; he was dead-killed on the spot by a bullet through the temples.
+That evening the village was ours, and the next day they placed in the
+cemetery of Villersexel the body of Dr. Reynaud.
+
+Two months later the Abbe Constantin took back to Longueval the coffin
+of his friend, and behind the coffin, when it was carried from the
+church, walked an orphan. Jean had also lost his mother. At the news of
+her husband's death, Madame Reynaud had remained for twenty-four hours
+petrified, crushed, without a word or a tear; then fever had seized her,
+then delirium, and after a fortnight, death.
+
+Jean was alone in the world; he was fourteen years old. Of that family,
+where for more than a century all had been good and honest, there
+remained only a child kneeling beside a grave; but he, too, promised
+to be what his father and grandfather before him had been--good, and
+honest, and true.
+
+There are families like that in France, and many of them, more than one
+ventures to say. Our poor country is in many respects calumniated by
+certain novelists, who draw exaggerated and distorted pictures of it. It
+is true the history of good people is often monotonous or painful. This
+story is a proof of it.
+
+The grief of Jean was the grief of a man. He remained long sad and
+silent. The evening of his father's funeral the Abbe Constantin took him
+home to the vicarage. The day had been rainy and cold. Jean was sitting
+by the fireside; the priest was reading his breviary opposite him. Old
+Pauline came and went, arranging her affairs.
+
+An hour passed without a word, when Jean, raising his head, said:
+
+"Godfather, did my father leave me any money?"
+
+This question was so extraordinary that the old priest, stupefied, could
+scarcely believe that he heard aright.
+
+"You ask if your father--"
+
+"I asked if my father left me some money?"
+
+"Yes; he must have left you some."
+
+"A good deal, don't you think? I have often heard people say that my
+father was rich. Tell me about how much he has left me!"
+
+"But I don't know. You ask--"
+
+The poor old man felt his heart rent in twain. Such a question at such a
+moment! Yet he thought he knew the boy's heart, and in that heart there
+should not be room for such thoughts.
+
+"Pray, dear godfather, tell me," continued Jean, gently. "I will explain
+to you afterward why I ask that."
+
+"Well, they say your father had 200,000 or 300,000 francs."
+
+"And is that much?"
+
+"Yes, it is a great deal."
+
+"And it is all mine?"
+
+"Yes, it is all yours."
+
+"Oh! I am glad, because, you know, the day that my father was killed in
+the war, the Prussians killed, at the same time, the son of a poor woman
+in Longueval--old Clemence, you know; and they killed, too, the brother
+of Rosalie, with whom I used to play when I was quite little. Well,
+since I am rich and they are poor, I will divide with Clemence and
+Rosalie the money my father has left me."
+
+On hearing these words the Cure rose, took Jean by both hands, and drew
+him into his arms. The white head rested on the fair one. Two large
+tears escaped from the eyes of the old priest, rolled slowly down his
+cheeks, and were lost in the furrows of his face.
+
+However, the Cure was obliged to explain to Jean that, though he was his
+father's heir, he had not the right of disposing of his heritage as
+he would. There would be a family council, and a guardian would be
+appointed.
+
+"You, no doubt, godfather?"
+
+"No, not I, my child; a priest has not the right of exercising the
+functions of a guardian. They will, I think, choose Monsieur Lenient,
+the lawyer in Souvigny, who was one of your father's best friends. You
+can speak to him and tell him what you wish."
+
+M. Lenient was eventually appointed guardian, and Jean urged his wishes
+so eagerly and touchingly that the lawyer consented to deduct from the
+income a sum of 2,400 francs, which, every year till Jean came of age,
+was divided between old Clemence and little Rosalie.
+
+Under these circumstances, Madame de Lavardens was perfect. She went to
+the Abbe and said:
+
+"Give Jean to me, give him to me entirely till he has finished his
+studies. I will bring him back to you every year during the holidays. It
+is not I who am rendering you a service; it is a service which I ask of
+you. I cannot imagine any greater good fortune for my son than to have
+Jean for a companion. I must resign myself to leaving Lavardens for a
+time. Paul is bent upon being a soldier and going up to Saint-Cyr. It is
+only in Paris that I can obtain the necessary masters. I will take the
+two children there; they will study together under my own eyes like
+brothers, and I will make no difference between them; of that you may be
+sure."
+
+It was difficult to refuse such an offer. The old Cure would have dearly
+liked to keep Jean with him, and his heart was torn at the thought of
+this separation, but what was for the child's real interest? That was
+the only question to be considered; the rest was nothing. They summoned
+Jean.
+
+"My child," said Madame de Lavardens to him, "will you come and live
+with Paul and me for some years? I will take you both to Paris."
+
+"You are very kind, Madame, but I should have liked so much to stay
+here."
+
+He looked at the Cure, who turned away his eyes.
+
+"Why must we go?" he continued. "Why must you take Paul and me away?"
+
+"Because it is only in Paris that you can have all the advantages
+necessary to complete your studies. Paul will prepare for his
+examination at Saint-Cyr. You know he wishes to be a soldier."
+
+"So do I, Madame. I wish to be one, too."
+
+"You a soldier!" exclaimed the Cure; "but you know that was not at all
+your father's idea. In my presence, he has often spoken of your
+future, your career. You were to be a doctor, and, like him, doctor at
+Longueval, and, like him, devote yourself to the sick and poor. Jean, my
+child, do you remember?"
+
+"I remember, I remember."
+
+"Well, then, Jean, you must do as your father wished; it is your duty,
+Jean; it is your duty. You must go to Paris. You would like to stay
+here, I understand that well, and I should like it, too; but it can not
+be. You must go to Paris, and work, work hard. Not that I am anxious
+about that; you are your father's true son. You will be an honest and
+laborious man. One can not well be the one without the other. And some
+day, in your father's house, in the place where he has done so much
+good, the poor people of the country round will find another Doctor
+Reynaud, to whom they may look for help. And I--if by chance I am still
+in this world--when that day comes, I shall be so happy! But I am wrong
+to speak of myself; I ought not, I do not count. It is of your father
+that you must think. I repeat it, Jean, it was his dearest wish. You can
+not have forgotten it."
+
+"No, I have not forgotten; but if my father sees me, and hears me, I am
+certain that he understands and forgives me, for it is on his account."
+
+"On his account?"
+
+"Yes. When I heard that he was dead, and when I heard how he died, all
+at once, without any need of reflection, I said to myself that I would
+be a soldier, and I will be a soldier! Godfather, and you, Madame, I beg
+you not to prevent me."
+
+The child burst into tears--a perfect flood of passionate tears. The
+Countess and the Abbe soothed him with gentle words.
+
+"Yes--yes--it is settled," they said; "anything that you wish, all that
+you wish."
+
+Both had the same thought--leave it to time; Jean is only a child; he
+will change his mind.
+
+In this, both were mistaken; Jean did not change his mind. In the month
+of September, 1876, Paul de Lavardens was rejected at Saint-Cyr, and
+Jean Reynaud passed eleventh at the Ecole Polytechnique. The day when
+the list of the candidates who had passed was published, he wrote to the
+Abbe Constantin:
+
+"I have passed, and passed too well, for I wish to go into the army, and
+not the civil service; however, if I keep my place in the school, that
+will be the business of one of my comrades; he will have my chance."
+
+It happened so in the end. Jean Reynaud did better than keep his place;
+the pass-list showed his name seventh, but instead of entering
+'l'Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees', he entered the military college at
+Fontainebleau in 1878.
+
+He was then just twenty-one; he was of age, master of his fortune, and
+the first act of the new administration was a great, a very great piece
+of extravagance.
+
+He bought for old Clemence and little Rosalie two shares in Government
+stock of 1,500 francs each. That cost him 70,000 francs, almost the sum
+that Paul de Lavardens, in his first year of liberty in Paris, spent for
+Mademoiselle Lise Bruyere, of the Palais Royal Theatre.
+
+Two years later Jean passed first at the examination, and left
+Fontainebleau with the right of choosing among the vacant places. There
+was one in the regiment quartered at Souvigny, and Souvigny was three
+miles from Longueval. Jean asked for this, and obtained it.
+
+Thus Jean Reynaud, lieutenant in the ninth regiment of artillery, came
+in the month of October, 1880, to take possession of the house that had
+been his father's; thus he found himself once more in the place where
+his childhood had passed, and where every one had kept green the memory
+of the life and death of his father; thus the Abbe Constantin was not
+denied the happiness of once again having near him the son of his old
+friend, and, if the truth must be told, he no longer wished that Jean
+had become a doctor.
+
+When the old Cure left his church after saying mass, when he saw coming
+along the road a great cloud of dust, when he felt the earth tremble
+under the rumbling cannon, he would stop, and, like a child, amuse
+himself with seeing the regiment pass, but to him the regiment
+was--Jean. It was this robust and manly cavalier, in whose face, as in
+an open book, one read uprightness, courage, and goodness.
+
+The moment Jean perceived the Cure, he would put his horse to a gallop,
+and go to have a little chat with his godfather. The horse would turn
+his head toward the Cure, for he knew very well there was always a piece
+of sugar for him in the pocket of that old black soutane--rusty and
+worn--the morning soutane. The Abbe Constantin had a beautiful new
+one, of which he took great care, to wear in society--when he went into
+society.
+
+The trumpets of the regiment sounded as they passed through the village,
+and all eyes sought Jean--"little Jean"-for to the old people of
+Longueval he was still little Jean. Certain wrinkled, broken-down,
+old peasants had never been able to break themselves of the habit of
+saluting him when he passed with, "Bonjour, gamin, ca va bien?"
+
+He was six feet high, this gamin, and Jean never crossed the village
+without perceiving at one window the old furrowed parchment skin of
+Clemence, and at another the smiling countenance of Rosalie. The latter
+had married during the previous year; Jean had given her away, and
+joyously on the wedding-night had he danced with the girls of Longueval.
+
+Such was the lieutenant of artillery, who, on Saturday, May 28, 1881, at
+half-past four in the afternoon, sprang from his horse before the door
+of the vicarage of Longueval. He entered the gate, the horse obediently
+followed, and went by himself into a little shed in the yard. Pauline
+was at the kitchen window; Jean approached and kissed her heartily on
+both cheeks.
+
+"Good-evening, Pauline. Is all well?"
+
+"Very well. I am busy preparing your dinner; would you like to know what
+you are going to have? potato soup, a leg of mutton, and a custard."
+
+"That is excellent; I shall enjoy everything, for I am dying of hunger."
+
+"And a salad; I had forgotten it; you can help me cut it directly.
+Dinner will be at half-past six exactly, for at half-past seven Monsieur
+le Cure has his service for the month of Mary."
+
+"Where is my godfather?"
+
+"You will find him in the garden. He is very sad on account of this sale
+of yesterday."
+
+"Yes, I know, I know."
+
+"It will cheer him a little to see you; he is always so happy when you
+are here. Take care; Loulou is going to eat the climbing roses. How hot
+he is!"
+
+"I came the long way by the wood, and rode very fast."
+
+Jean captured Loulou, who was directing his steps toward the climbing
+roses. He unsaddled him, fastened him in the little shed, rubbed him
+down with a great handful of straw, after which he entered the house,
+relieved himself of his sword and kepi, replaced the latter by an old
+straw hat, value sixpence, and then went to look for his godfather in
+the garden.
+
+The poor Abbe was indeed sad; he had scarcely closed an eye all
+night--he who generally slept so easily, so quietly, the sound sleep of
+a child. His soul was wrung. Longueval in the hands of a foreigner, of a
+heretic, of an adventuress!
+
+Jean repeated what Paul had said the evening before.
+
+"You will have money, plenty of money, for your poor."
+
+"Money! money! Yes, my poor will not lose, perhaps they will even gain
+by it; but I must go and ask for this money, and in the salon, instead
+of my old and dear friend, I shall find this red-haired American. It
+seems that she has red hair! I will certainly go for the sake of my
+poor--I will go--and she will give me the money, but she will give me
+nothing but money; the Marquise gave me something else--her life and her
+heart. Every week we went together to visit the sick and the poor; she
+knew all the sufferings and the miseries of the country round, and when
+the gout nailed me to my easy-chair she made the rounds alone, and as
+well, or better than I."
+
+Pauline interrupted this conversation. She carried an immense
+earthenware salad-dish, on which bloomed, violent and startling,
+enormous red flowers.
+
+"Here I am," said Pauline, "I am going to cut the salad. Jean, would you
+like lettuce or endive?"
+
+"Endive," said Jean, gayly. "It is a long time since I have had any
+endive."
+
+"Well, you shall have some to-night. Stay, take the dish."
+
+Pauline began to cut the endive, and Jean bent down to receive the
+leaves in the great salad dish. The Cure looked on.
+
+At this moment a sound of little bells was heard. A carriage was
+approaching; one heard the jangling and creaking of its wheels. The
+Cure's little garden was only separated from the road by a low hedge, in
+the middle of which was a little trellised gate.
+
+All three looked out, and saw driving down the road a hired carriage of
+most primitive construction, drawn by two great white horses, and driven
+by an old coachman in a blouse. Beside this old coachman was seated a
+tall footman in livery, of the most severe and correct demeanor. In the
+carriage were two young women, dressed both alike in very elegant, but
+very simple, travelling costumes.
+
+When the carriage was opposite the gate the coachman stopped his horses,
+and addressing the Abbe:
+
+"Monsieur le Cure," said he, "these ladies wish to speak to you."
+
+Then, turning toward the ladies:
+
+"This is Monsieur le Cure of Longueval."
+
+The Abbe Constantin approached and opened the little gate. The
+travellers alighted. Their looks rested, not without astonishment, on
+the young officer, who stood there, a little embarrassed, with his straw
+hat in one hand, and his salad dish, all overflowing with endive, in the
+other.
+
+The visitors entered the garden, and the elder--she seemed about
+twenty-five--addressing the Abbe Constantin, said to him, with a little
+foreign accent, very original and very peculiar:
+
+"I am obliged to introduce myself---Mrs. Scott; I am Mrs. Scott! It
+was I who bought the castle and farms and all the rest here at the sale
+yesterday. I hope that I do not disturb you, and that you can spare me
+five minutes." Then, pointing to her travelling companion, "Miss Bettina
+Percival, my sister; you guessed it, I am sure. We are very much alike,
+are we not? Ah! Bettina, we have left our bags in the carriage, and we
+shall want them directly."
+
+"I will get them."
+
+And as Miss Percival prepared to go for the two little bags, Jean said
+to her:
+
+"Pray allow me."
+
+"I am really very sorry to give you so much trouble. The servant will
+give them to you; they are on the front seat."
+
+She had the same accent as her sister, the same large eyes--black,
+laughing, and gay-and the same hair, not red, but fair, with golden
+shades, where daintily danced the light of the sun. She bowed to Jean
+with a pretty little smile, and he, having returned to Pauline the
+salad dish full of endive, went to look for the two little bags.
+Meanwhile-much agitated, sorely disturbed--the Abbe Constantin
+introduced into his vicarage the new Chatelaine of Longueval.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. DELIGHTFUL SURPRISES
+
+This vicarage of Longueval was far from being a palace. The same
+apartment on the ground floor served for dining and drawing-room,
+communicating directly with the kitchen by a door, which stood always
+wide open. This room was furnished in the most scanty manner; two old
+arm chairs, six straw chairs, a sideboard, a round table. Pauline had
+already laid the cloth for the dinner of the Abbe and Jean.
+
+Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival went and came, examining the domestic
+arrangements of the Cure with a sort of childish wonder.
+
+"But the garden, the house, everything is charming," said Mrs. Scott.
+
+They both boldly penetrated into the kitchen; the Abbe Constantin
+followed them, scared, bewildered, stupefied at the suddenness and
+resolution of this American invasion.
+
+Old Pauline, with an anxious and gloomy air, examined the two
+foreigners.
+
+"There they are, then," she said to herself, "these Protestants, these
+accursed heretics!"
+
+"I must compliment you," said Bettina; "it is so beautifully kept. Look,
+Susie, is not the vicarage altogether exactly what you wished?"
+
+"And so is the Cure," rejoined Mrs. Scott. "Yes, Monsieur le Cure, if
+you will permit me to say so, you do not know how happy it makes me to
+find you just what you are. In the railway carriage what did I say to
+you, Bettina? And again just now, when we were driving here?"
+
+"My sister said to me, Monsieur le Cure, that what she desired above
+everything was a priest, not young, or melancholy, or severe; but one
+with white hair and a kind and gentle manner. And that is exactly what
+you are, Monsieur le Cure, exactly. No, we could not have been more
+fortunate. Excuse me for speaking to you in this manner; the Parisians
+know how to make pretty phrases, but I do not, and in speaking French I
+should often be quite at a loss if I did not say everything in a simple
+and childish way, as it comes into my head. In a word, I am satisfied,
+quite satisfied, and I hope that you, too, Monsieur le Cure, will be as
+satisfied with your new parishioners."
+
+"My parishioners!" exclaimed the Cure, all at once recovering speech,
+movement, life, everything which for some moments had completely
+abandoned him. "My parishioners! Pardon me, Madame, Mademoiselle, I am
+so agitated. You will be--you are Catholics?"
+
+"Certainly we are Catholics."
+
+"Catholics! Catholics!" repeated the Cure.
+
+"Catholics! Catholics!" echoed old Pauline.
+
+Mrs. Scott looked from the Cure to Pauline, from Pauline to the Cure,
+much surprised that a single word should produce such an effect, and, to
+complete the tableau, Jean appeared carrying the two little travelling
+bags.
+
+The Cure and Pauline saluted him with the same words:
+
+"Catholics! Catholics!"
+
+"Ah! I begin to understand," said Mrs. Scott, laughing. "It is our name,
+our country; you must have thought that we were Protestants. Not at all.
+Our mother was a Canadian, French and Catholic by descent; that is why
+my sister and I both speak French, with an accent, it is true, and
+with certain American idioms, but yet in such a manner as to be able to
+express nearly all we want to say. My husband is a Protestant, but he
+allows me complete liberty, and my two children are Catholics. That is
+why, Monsieur l'Abbe, we wished to come and see you the very first day."
+
+"That is one reason," continued Bettina, "but there is also another; but
+for that reason we shall want our little bags."
+
+"Here they are," said Jean.
+
+While the two little bags passed from the hands of the officer to
+those of Mrs. Scott and Bettina, the Cure introduced Jean to the two
+Americans, but his agitation was so great that the introduction was not
+made strictly according to rule. The Cure only forgot one thing, it is
+true, but that was a thing tolerably essential in an introduction--the
+family name of Jean.
+
+"It is Jean," said he, "my godson, lieutenant of artillery, now
+quartered at Souvigny. He is one of the family."
+
+Jean made two deep bows, the Americans two little ones, after which they
+foraged in their bags, from which each drew a 'rouleau' of 1,000 francs,
+daintily inclosed in green sheaths of serpent-skin, clasped with gold.
+
+"I have brought you this for your poor," said Mrs. Scott.
+
+"And I have brought this," said Bettina.
+
+"And besides that, Monsieur le Cure, I am going to give you five hundred
+francs a month," said Mrs. Scott.
+
+"And I will do like my sister."
+
+Delicately they slipped their offerings into the right and left hands of
+the Cure, who, looking at each hand alternately, said:
+
+"What are these little things? They are very heavy; there must be money
+in them. Yes, but how much, how much?"
+
+The Abbe Constantin was seventy-two, and much money had passed through
+his hands, but this money had come to him in small sums, and the idea
+of such an offering as this had never entered his head. Two thousand
+francs! Never had he had so much in his possession--no, not even one
+thousand. He stammered:
+
+"I am very grateful to you, Madame; you are very good, Mademoiselle--"
+
+But after all he could not thank them enough, and Jean thought it
+necessary to come to his assistance.
+
+"They have given you two thousand francs!"
+
+And then, full of warmest gratitude; the Cure cried:
+
+"Two thousand francs! Two thousand francs for my poor!"
+
+Pauline suddenly reappeared.
+
+"Here, Pauline," said the Cure, "put away this money, and take care--"
+
+Old Pauline filled many positions in this simple household: cook,
+maid-of-all-work, treasurer, dispenser. Her hands received with a
+respectful tremble these two little 'rouleaux' which represented so much
+misery alleviated, so much suffering relieved.
+
+"One thousand francs a month! But there will be no poor left in the
+country."
+
+"That is just what I wish. I am rich, very rich, and so is my sister;
+she is even richer than I am, because a young girl has not so many
+expenses, while I--Ah! well, I spend all that I can--all that I can.
+When one has a great deal of money, too much, more than one feels to
+be just, tell me, Monsieur le Cure, is there any other way of obtaining
+pardon than to keep one's hands open, and give, give, give, all one
+can, and as usefully as one can? Besides, you can give me something in
+return;" and, turning to Pauline, "Will you be so kind as to give me a
+glass of water? No, nothing else; a glass of cold water; I am dying of
+thirst."
+
+"And I," said Bettina, laughing, while Pauline ran to fetch the water,
+"I am dying of something else-of hunger, to tell the truth. Monsieur
+le Cure--I know that I am going to be dreadfully intrusive; I see your
+cloth is laid--could you not invite us to dinner?"
+
+"Bettina!" said Mrs. Scott.
+
+"Let me alone, Susie, let me alone. Won't you, Monsieur le Cure? I am
+sure you will."
+
+But he could find no reply. The old Cure hardly knew where he was. They
+had taken his vicarage by storm; they were Catholics; they had promised
+him one thousand francs a month, and now they wanted to dine with him.
+Ah! that was the last stroke. Terror seized him at the thought of having
+to do the honors of his leg of mutton and his custard to these two
+absurdly rich Americans. He murmured:
+
+"Dine!-you would like to dine here?"
+
+Jean thought he must interpose again. "It would be a great pleasure
+to my godfather," said he, "if you would kindly stay. But I know what
+disturbs him. We were going to dine together, just the two of us, and
+you must not expect a feast. You will be very indulgent?"
+
+"Yes, yes, very indulgent," replied Bettina; then, addressing her
+sister, "Come, Susie, you must not be cross, because I have been a
+little--you know it is my way to be a little--Let us stay, will you? It
+will do us good to pass a quiet hour here, after such a day as we have
+had! On the railway, in the carriage, in the heat, in the dust; we had
+such a horrid luncheon, in such a horrid hotel. We were to have returned
+to the same hotel at seven o'clock to dine, and then take the train back
+to Paris, but dinner here will be really much nicer. You won't say no?
+Ah! how good you are, Susie!"
+
+She embraced her sister fondly; then turning toward the Cure:
+
+"If you only knew, Monsieur le Cure, how good she is!"
+
+"Bettina! Bettina!"
+
+"Come," said Jean, "quick, Pauline, two more plates; I will help you."
+
+"And so will I," said Bettina, "I will help, too. Oh! do let me; it will
+be so amusing. Monsieur le Cure, you will let me do a little as if I
+were at home?"
+
+In a moment she had taken off her mantle, and Jean could admire, in all
+its exquisite perfection, a figure marvellous for suppleness and grace.
+Miss Percival then removed her hat, but with a little too much haste,
+for this was the signal for a charming catastrophe. A whole avalanche
+descended in torrents, in long cascades, over Bettina's shoulders. She
+was standing before a window flooded by the rays of the sun, and this
+golden light, falling full on this golden hair, formed a delicious
+frame for the sparkling beauty of the young girl. Confused and blushing,
+Bettina was obliged to call her sister to her aid, and Mrs. Scott had
+much trouble in introducing order into this disorder.
+
+When this disaster was at length repaired, nothing could prevent Bettina
+from rushing on plates, knives, and forks.
+
+"Oh, indeed," said she to Jean, "I know very well how to lay the cloth.
+Ask my sister. Tell him, Susie, when I was a little girl in New York, I
+used to lay the cloth very well, didn't I?"
+
+"Very well, indeed," said Mrs. Scott.
+
+And then, while begging the Cure to excuse Bettina's want of thought,
+she, too, took off her hat and mantle, so that Jean had again the very
+agreeable spectacle of a charming figure and beautiful hair; but, to
+Jean's great regret, the catastrophe had not a second representation.
+
+In a few minutes Mrs. Scott, Miss Percival, the Cure, and Jean were
+seated round the little vicarage table; then, thanks partly to the
+impromptu and original nature of the entertainment, partly to the
+good-humor and perhaps slightly audacious gayety of Bettina, the
+conversation took a turn of the frankest and most cordial familiarity.
+
+"Now, Monsieur le Cure," said Bettina, "you shall see if I did not speak
+the truth when I said I was dying of hunger. I never was so glad to sit
+down to dinner. This is such a delightful finish to our day. Both my
+sister and I are perfectly happy now we have this castle, and these
+farms, and the forest."
+
+"And then," said Mrs. Scott, "to have all that in such an extraordinary
+and unexpected manner. We were so taken by surprise."
+
+"You may indeed say so, Susie. You must know, Monsieur l'Abbe,
+that yesterday was my sister's birthday. But first, pardon me,
+Monsieur--Jean, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Percival, Monsieur Jean."
+
+"Well, Monsieur Jean, a little more of that excellent soup, if you
+please."
+
+The Abbe was beginning to recover a little, but he was still too
+agitated to perform the duties of a host. It was Jean who had undertaken
+the management of his godfather's little dinner. He filled the plate of
+the charming American, who fixed upon him the glance of two large eyes,
+in which sparkled frankness, daring, and gayety. The eyes of Jean,
+meanwhile, repaid Miss Percival in the same coin. It was scarcely three
+quarters of an hour since the young American and the young officer had
+made acquaintance in the Cure's garden, yet both felt already perfectly
+at ease with each other, full of confidence, almost like old friends.
+
+"I told you, Monsieur l'Abbe," continued Bettina, "that yesterday was my
+sister's birthday. A week ago my brother-in-law was obliged to return to
+America, but at starting he said to my sister, 'I shall not be with you
+on your birthday, but you will hear from me.' So, yesterday, presents
+and bouquets arrived from all quarters, but from my brother-in-law, up
+to five o'clock, nothing--nothing. We were just starting for a ride in
+the Bois, and 'a propos' of riding"--she stopped, and looking curiously
+at Jean's great dusty boots--"Monsieur Jean, you have spurs on."
+
+"Yes, Miss Percival."
+
+"Then you are in the cavalry?"
+
+"I am in the artillery, and that, you know, is cavalry."
+
+"And your regiment is quartered?"---
+
+"Quite near here."
+
+"Then you will be able to ride with us?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure."
+
+"That is settled. Let me see; where was I?"
+
+"You do not know at all where you are, Bettina, and you are telling
+these gentlemen things which can not interest them."
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon," said the Cure. "The sale of this estate is
+the only subject of conversation in the neighborhood just now, and Miss
+Percival's account interests me very much."
+
+"You see, Susie, my account interests Monsieur le Cure very much; then
+I shall continue. We went for our ride, we returned at seven
+o'clock--nothing. We dined, and just when we were leaving the table a
+telegram from America arrived. It contained only a few lines:
+
+"'I have ordered the purchase to-day, for you and in your name, of the
+castle and lands of Longueval, near Souvigny, on the Northern Railway
+line.'
+
+"Then we both burst into a fit of wild laughter at the thought."
+
+"No, no, Bettina; you calumniate us both. Our first thought was one of
+very sincere gratitude, for both my sister and I are very fond of
+the country. My husband knows that we had longed to have an estate in
+France. For six months he had been looking out, and found nothing. At
+last he discovered this one, and, without telling us, ordered it to be
+bought for my birthday. It was a delicate attention."
+
+"Yes, Susie, you are right, but after the little fit of gratitude, we
+had a great one of gayety."
+
+"Yes, I confess it. When we realized that we had suddenly become
+possessed of a castle, without knowing in the least where it was, what
+it was like, or how much it had cost, it seemed so like a fairy-tale.
+Well, for five good minutes we laughed with all our hearts, then we
+seized the map of France, and succeeded in discovering Souvigny. When he
+had finished with the map it was the turn of the railway guide, and this
+morning, by the ten o'clock express, we arrived at Souvigny.
+
+"We have passed the whole day in visiting the castle, the farms, the
+woods, the stables. We are delighted with what we have seen. Only,
+Monsieur le Cure, there is one thing about which I feel curious. I know
+that the place was sold yesterday; but I have not dared to ask either
+agent or farmer who accompanied me in my walk--for my ignorance would
+have seemed too absurd--I have not dared to ask how much it cost. In the
+telegram my husband does not mention the sum. Since I am so delighted
+with the place, the price is only a detail, but still I should like to
+know it. Tell me, Monsieur le Cure, do you know what it cost?"
+
+"An enormous price," replied the Cure, "for many hopes and many
+ambitions were excited about Longueval."
+
+"An enormous price! You frighten me. How much exactly?"
+
+"Three millions!"
+
+"Is that all? Is that all?" cried Mrs. Scott. "The castle, the farms,
+the forest, all for three millions?"
+
+"But that is nothing," said Bettina. "That delicious little stream which
+wanders through the park is alone worth three millions."
+
+"And you said just now, Monsieur le Cure, that there were several
+persons who disputed the purchase with us?"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Scott."
+
+"And, after the sale, was my name mentioned among these persons?"
+
+"Certainly it was."
+
+"And when my name was mentioned was there no one there who spoke of me?
+Yes, yes, your silence is a sufficient answer; they did speak of me.
+Well, Monsieur le Cure, I am now serious, very serious. I beg you as a
+favor to tell me what was said."
+
+"But," replied the poor Cure, who felt himself upon burning coals, "they
+spoke of your large fortune."
+
+"Yes, of course, they would be obliged to speak of that, and no doubt
+they said that I was very rich, but had not been rich long--that I was
+a parvenu. Very well, but that is not all; they must have said something
+else."
+
+"No, indeed; I have heard nothing else."
+
+"Oh, Monsieur le Cure, that is what you may call a white lie, and it is
+making you very unhappy, because naturally you are the soul of truth;
+but if I torment you thus it is because I have the greatest interest in
+knowing what was said."
+
+"You are right," interrupted Jean, "you are right. They said you were
+one of the most elegant, the most brilliant, and the--"
+
+"And one of the prettiest women in Paris. With a little indulgence they
+might say that; but that is not all yet--there is something else."
+
+"Oh! I assure you--"
+
+"Yes, there is something else, and I should like to hear it this very
+moment, and I should like the information to be very frank and very
+exact. It seems to me that I am in a lucky vein to-day, and I feel as if
+you were both a little inclined to be my friends, and that you will
+be so entirely some day. Well, tell me if I am right in supposing that
+should false and absurd stories be told about me you will help me to
+contradict them."
+
+"Yes!" replied Jean, "you are right in believing that."
+
+"Well, then, it is to you that I address myself. You are a soldier, and
+courage is part of your profession. Promise me to be brave. Will you
+promise me?"
+
+"What do you understand by being brave?"
+
+"Promise, promise--without explanations, without conditions."
+
+"Well, I promise."
+
+"You will then reply frankly, 'Yes' or 'No,' to questions?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Did they say that I had begged in the streets of New York?"
+
+"Yes, they said so."
+
+"Did they say I had been a rider in a travelling circus?"
+
+"Yes; they said that, too."
+
+"Very well; that is plain speaking. Now remark first that in all this
+there is nothing that one might not acknowledge if it were true; but it
+is not true, and have I not the right of denying it? My history--I will
+tell it you in a few words. I am going to pass a part of my life in this
+place, and I desire that all should know who I am and whence I come. To
+begin, then. Poor! Yes, I have been, and very poor. Eight years ago my
+father died, and was soon followed by my mother. I was then eighteen,
+and Bettina nine. We were alone in the world, encumbered with heavy
+debts and a great lawsuit. My father's last words had been, 'Susie,
+never, never compromise. Millions, my children, you will have millions.'
+He embraced us both; soon delirium seized him, and he died repeating,
+'Millions; millions!' The next morning a lawyer appeared, who offered
+to pay all our debts, and to give us besides ten thousand dollars, if
+we would give up all our claims. I refused. It was then that for several
+months we were very poor."
+
+"And it was then," said Bettina, "that I used to lay the cloth."
+
+"I spent my life among the solicitors of New York, but no one would take
+up my case; everywhere I received the same reply: 'Your cause is very
+doubtful; you have rich and formidable adversaries; you need money,
+large sums of money, to bring such a case to a conclusion, and you have
+nothing. They offer to pay your debts, and to give you ten thousand
+dollars besides. Accept it, and sell your case.' But my father's last
+words rang in my ears, and I would not. Poverty, however, might soon
+have forced me to, when one day I made another attempt on one of my
+father's old friends, a banker in New York, Mr. William Scott. He was
+not alone; a young man was sitting in his office.
+
+"'You may speak freely,' said Mr. Scott; 'it is my son Richard.'
+
+"I looked at the young man, he looked at me, and we recognized each
+other.
+
+"'Susie!'
+
+"'Richard!"
+
+"Formerly, as children, we had often played together and were great
+friends. Seven or eight years before this meeting he had been sent to
+Europe to finish his education. We shook hands; his father made me
+sit down, and asked what had brought me. He listened to my tale; and
+replied:
+
+"'You would require twenty or thirty thousand dollars. No one would lend
+you such a sum upon the uncertain chances of a very complicated lawsuit.
+If you are in difficulties; if you need assistance--'
+
+"'It is not that, father. That is not what Miss Percival asks.'
+
+"'I know that very well, but what she asks is impossible.'
+
+"He rose to let me out. Then the sense of my helplessness overpowered me
+for the first time since my father's death. I burst into a violent flood
+of tears. An hour later Richard Scott was with me.
+
+"'Susie,' he said, 'promise to accept what I am going to offer.'
+
+"I promised him.
+
+"'Well,' said he, 'on the single condition that my father shall know
+nothing about it, I place at your disposal the necessary sum.'
+
+"'But then you ought to know what the lawsuit is--what it is worth.'
+
+"'I do not know a single word about it, and I do not wish to. Besides,
+you have promised to accept it; you can not withdraw now.'
+
+"I accepted. Three months after the case was ours. All this vast
+property became beyond dispute the property of Bettina and me. The
+other side offered to buy it of us for five million dollars. I consulted
+Richard.
+
+"'Refuse it and wait,' said he; 'if they offer you such a sum it is
+because the property is worth double.'
+
+"'However, I must return you your money; I owe you a great deal.'
+
+"'Oh! as for that there is no hurry; I am very easy about it; my money
+is quite safe now.'
+
+"'But I should like to pay you at once. I have a horror of debt! Perhaps
+there is another way without selling the property. Richard, will you be
+my husband?'
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Cure, yes," said Mrs. Scott, laughing, "it is thus
+that I threw myself at my husband's head. It is I who asked his hand.
+But really I was obliged to act thus. Never, never, would he have
+spoken; I had become too rich, and as it was me he loved, and not my
+money, he was becoming terribly afraid of me. That is the history of
+my marriage. As to the history of my fortune, it can be told in a few
+words. There were indeed millions in those wide lands of Colorado; they
+discovered there abundant mines of silver, and from those mines we draw
+every year an income which is beyond reason, but we have agreed--my
+husband, my sister, and myself--to give a very large share of this
+income to the poor. You see, Monsieur le Cure, it is because we have
+known very hard times that you will always find us ready to help those
+who are, as we have been ourselves, involved in the difficulties and
+sorrows of life. And now, Monsieur Jean, will you forgive me this long
+discourse, and offer me a little of that cream, which looks so very
+good?"
+
+This cream was Pauline's custard, and while Jean was serving Mrs. Scott:
+
+"I have not yet finished," she continued. "You ought to know what gave
+rise to these extravagant stories. A year ago, when we settled in Paris,
+we considered it our duty on our arrival to give a certain sum to the
+poor. Who was it spoke of that? None of us, certainly, but the thing was
+told in a newspaper, with the amount. Immediately two young reporters
+hastened to subject Mr. Scott to a little examination on his past
+history; they wished to give a sketch of our career in the--what do you
+call them?--society papers. Mr. Scott is sometimes a little hasty; he
+was so on this occasion, and dismissed these gentlemen rather brusquely,
+without telling them anything. So, as they did not know our real
+history, they invented one, and certainly displayed a very lively
+imagination. First they related how I had begged in the snow in New
+York; the next day appeared a still more sensational article, which made
+me a rider in a circus in Philadelphia. You have some very funny papers
+in France; so have we in America, for the matter of that."
+
+During the last five minutes, Pauline had been making desperate signs to
+the Cure, who persisted in not understanding them, till at last the poor
+woman, calling up all her courage, said:
+
+"Monsieur le Cure, it is a quarter past seven."
+
+"A quarter past seven! Ladies, I must beg you to excuse me. This evening
+I have the special service for the month of Mary."
+
+"The month of Mary? And will the service begin directly?"
+
+"Yes, directly."
+
+"And when does our train start for Paris?"
+
+"At half past nine," replied Jean.
+
+"Susie, can we not go to church first?"
+
+"Yes, we will go," replied Mrs. Scott; "but before we separate, Monsieur
+le Cure, I have one favor to ask you. I should like very much, the first
+time I dine at Longueval, that you would dine with me, and you, too,
+Monsieur Jean, just us four alone like to-day. Oh! do not refuse my
+invitation; it is given with all my heart."
+
+"And accepted as heartily," replied Jean.
+
+"I will write and tell you the day, and it shall be as soon as possible.
+You call that having a housewarming, don't you? Well, we shall have the
+house-warming all to ourselves."
+
+Meanwhile, Pauline had drawn Miss Percival into a corner of the room,
+and was talking to her with great animation. The conversation ended with
+these words:
+
+"You will be there?" said Bettina, "and you will tell me the exact
+moment?"
+
+"I will tell you, but take care. Here is Monsieur le Cure; he must not
+suspect anything."
+
+The two sisters, the Cure, and Jean left the house. To go to the church
+they were obliged to cross the churchyard. The evening was delicious.
+Slowly, silently, under the rays of the setting sun, the four walked
+down a long avenue.
+
+On their way was the monument to Dr. Reynaud, very simple, but which, by
+its fine proportions, showed distinctly among the other tombs.
+
+Mrs. Scott and Bettina stopped, struck with this inscription carved on
+the stone:
+
+"Here lies Dr. Marcel Reynaud, Surgeon-Major of the Souvigny Mobiles;
+killed January 8, 1871, at the Battle of Villersexel. Pray for him."
+
+When they had read it, the Cure, pointing to Jean, said:
+
+"It was his father!"
+
+The two sisters drew near the tomb, and with bent heads remained there
+for some minutes, pensive, touched, contemplative. Then both turned, and
+at the same moment, by the same impulse, offered their hands to Jean;
+then continued their walk to the church. Their first prayer at Longueval
+had been for the father of Jean.
+
+The Cure went to put on his surplice and stole. Jean conducted Mrs.
+Scott to the seat which belonged to the masters of Longueval.
+
+Pauline had gone on before. She was waiting for Miss Percival in the
+shadow behind one of the pillars. By a steep and narrow staircase, she
+led Bettina to the gallery, and placed her before the harmonium.
+
+Preceded by two little chorister boys, the old Cure left the vestry, and
+at the moment when he knelt on the steps of the alter:
+
+"Now! Mademoiselle," said Pauline, whose heart beat with impatience.
+"Poor, dear man, how pleased he will be."
+
+When he heard the sound of the music rise, soft as a murmur, and spread
+through the little church, the Abbe Constantin was filled with such
+emotion, such joy, that the tears came to his eyes. He could not
+remember having wept since the day when Jean had said that he wished to
+share all that he possessed with the mother and sister of those who had
+fallen by his father's side under the Prussian bullets.
+
+To bring tears to the eyes of the old priest, a little American had been
+brought across the seas to play a reverie of Chopin in the little church
+of Longueval.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 2.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. A RIOT OF CHARITY
+
+The next day, at half-past five in the morning, the bugle-call rang
+through the barrack-yard at Souvigny. Jean mounted his horse, and took
+his place with his division. By the end of May all the recruits in the
+army are sufficiently instructed to be capable of sharing in the general
+evolutions. Almost every day manoeuvres of the mounted artillery are
+executed on the parade-ground. Jean loved his profession; he was in the
+habit of inspecting carefully the grooming and harness of the horses,
+the equipment and carriage of his men. This morning, however, he
+bestowed but scant attention on all the little details of his duty.
+
+One problem agitated, tormented him, and left him always undecided, and
+this problem was one of those the solution of which is not given at
+the Ecole Polytechnique. Jean could find no convincing reply to this
+question: Which of the two sisters is the prettier?
+
+At the butts, during the first part of the manoeuvre, each battery
+worked on its own account, under the orders of the captain; but he often
+relinquished the place to one of his lieutenants, in order to accustom
+them to the management of six field-pieces. It happened on this day that
+the command was intrusted to the hands of Jean. To the great surprise of
+the Captain, in whose estimation his Lieutenant held the first rank as
+a well-trained, smart, and capable officer, everything went wrong. The
+Captain was obliged to interfere; he addressed a little reprimand to
+Jean, which terminated in these words:
+
+"I can not understand it at all. What is the matter with you this
+morning? It is the first time such a thing has happened with you."
+
+It was also the first time that Jean had seen anything at the butts at
+Souvigny but cannon, ammunition wagons, horses, or gunners.
+
+In the clouds of dust raised by the wheels of the wagons and the hoofs
+of the horses Jean beheld, not the second mounted battery of the 9th
+Regiment of artillery, but the distinct images of two Americans
+with black eyes and golden hair; and, at the moment when he listened
+respectfully to the well-merited lecture from his Captain, he was in the
+act of saying to himself:
+
+"The prettier is Mrs. Scott!"
+
+Every morning the exercise is divided into two parts by a little
+interval of ten minutes. The officers gathered together and talked; Jean
+remained apart, alone with his recollections of the previous evening.
+His thoughts obstinately gathered round the vicarage of Longueval.
+
+"Yes! the more charming of the two sisters is Mrs. Scott; Miss Percival
+is only a child."
+
+He saw again Mrs. Scott at the Cure's little table. He heard her
+story told with such frankness, such freedom. The harmony of that very
+peculiar, very fascinating voice, still enchanted his ear. He was again
+in the church; she was there before him, bending over her prie-Dieu, her
+pretty head resting in her two little hands; then the music arose, and
+far off, in the dusk, Jean perceived the fine and delicate profile of
+Bettina.
+
+"A child--is she only a child?"
+
+The trumpets sounded, the practice was resumed; this time, fortunately,
+no command, no responsibility. The four batteries executed their
+evolutions together; this immense mass of men, horses, and carriages,
+deployed in every direction, now drawn out in a long line, again
+collected into a compact group. All stopped at the same instant along
+the whole extent of the ground; the gunners sprang from their horses,
+ran to their pieces, detached each from its team, which went off at
+a trot and prepared to fire with amazing rapidity. Then the horses
+returned, the men re-attached their pieces; sprang quickly to saddle,
+and the regiment started at full gallop across the field.
+
+Very gently in the thoughts of Jean Bettina regained her advantage over
+Mrs. Scott. She appeared to him smiling and blushing amid the sunlit
+clouds of her floating hair. Monsieur Jean, she had called him, Monsieur
+Jean, and never had his name sounded so sweet. And that last pressure
+of the hand on taking leave, before entering the carriage. Had not Miss
+Percival given him a more cordial clasp than Mrs. Scott had done? Yes,
+positively a little more.
+
+"I was mistaken," thought Jean; "the prettier is Miss Percival."
+
+The day's work was finished; the pieces were ranged regularly in line
+one behind the other; they defiled rapidly, with a horrible clatter, and
+in a cloud of dust. When Jean, sword in hand, passed before his Colonel,
+the images of the two sisters were so confused and intermingled in his
+recollection that they melted the one in the other, and became in
+some measure the image of one and the same person. Any parallel became
+impossible between them, thanks to this singular confusion of the
+two points of comparison. Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival remained thus
+inseparable in the thoughts of Jean until the day when it was granted to
+him to see them again. The impression of that meeting was not effaced;
+it was always there, persistent, and very sweet, till Jean began to feel
+disturbed.
+
+"Is it possible"--so ran his meditations--"is it possible that I have
+been guilty of the folly of falling in love madly at first sight? No;
+one might fall in love with a woman, but not with two women at once."
+
+That thought reassured him. He was very young, this great fellow of
+four-and-twenty; never had love entered fully into his heart. Love! He
+knew very little about it, except from books, and he had read but few
+of them. But he was no angel; he could find plenty of attractions in the
+grisettes of Souvigny, and when they would allow him to tell them
+that they were charming, he was quite ready to do so, but it had never
+entered his head to regard as love those passing fancies, which only
+caused the slightest and most superficial disturbance in his heart.
+
+Paul de Lavardens had marvellous powers of enthusiasm and idealization.
+His heart sheltered always two or three grandes passions, which lived
+there in perfect harmony. Paul had been so clever as to discover, in
+this little town of 15,000 souls, numbers of pretty girls, all made to
+be adored. He always believed himself the discoverer of America,
+when, in fact, he had done nothing but follow in the track of other
+navigators.
+
+The world-Jean had scarcely encountered it. He had allowed himself to
+be dragged by Paul, a dozen times, perhaps, to soirees or balls at the
+great houses of the neighborhood. He had invariably returned thoroughly
+bored, and had concluded that these pleasures were not made for him. His
+tastes were simple, serious. He loved solitude, work, long walks, open
+space, horses, and books. He was rather savage--a son of the soil. He
+loved his village, and all the old friends of his childhood. A quadrille
+in a drawing-room caused him unspeakable terror; but every year, at
+the festival of the patron saint of Longueval, he danced gayly with the
+young girls and farmers' daughters of the neighborhood.
+
+If he had seen Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival at home in Paris, in all
+the splendor of their luxury, in all the perfection of their costly
+surroundings, he would have looked at them from afar, with curiosity, as
+exquisite works of art. Then he would have returned home, and would have
+slept, as usual, the most peaceful slumber in the world.
+
+Yes, but it was not thus that the thing had come to pass, and hence his
+excitement, hence his disturbance. These two women had shown themselves
+before him in the midst of a circle with which he was familiar, and
+which had been, if only for this reason, singularly favorable to them.
+Simple, good, frank, cordial, such they had shown themselves the very
+first day, and delightfully pretty into the bargain--a fact which is
+never insignificant. Jean fell at once under the charm; he was there
+still!
+
+At the moment when he dismounted in the barrack-yard, at nine o'clock,
+the old priest began his campaign joyously. Since the previous evening
+the Abbe's head had been on fire; Jean had not slept much, but he had
+not slept at all. He had risen very early, and with closed doors, alone
+with Pauline, he had counted and recounted his money, spreading out
+his one hundred Louis-d'or, gloating over them like a miser, and like
+a miser finding exquisite pleasure in handling his hoard. All that was
+his! for him! that is to say, for the poor.
+
+"Do not be too lavish, Monsieur le Cure," said Pauline; "be economical.
+I think that if you distribute to-day one hundred francs--"
+
+"That is not enough, Pauline. I shall only have one such day in my life,
+but one I will have. How much do you think I shall give to-day?"
+
+"How much, Monsieur le Cure?"
+
+"One thousand francs!"
+
+"One thousand francs!"
+
+"Yes. We are millionaires now; we possess all the treasures of America,
+and you talk about economy? Not to-day, at all events; indeed, I have no
+right to think of it."
+
+After saying mass at nine o'clock he set out and showered gold along his
+way. All had a share--the poor who acknowledged their poverty and
+those who concealed it. Each alms was accompanied by the same little
+discourse:
+
+"This comes from the new owners of the Longueval--two American ladies,
+Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival. Remember their names, and pray for them."
+
+Then he made off without waiting for thanks, across the fields, through
+the woods, from hamlet to hamlet, from cottage to cottage--on, on, on. A
+sort of intoxication mounted to his brain. Everywhere were cries of joy
+and astonishment. All these louis-d'or fell, as if by a miracle, into
+the poor hands accustomed to receive little pieces of silver. The Curb
+was guilty of follies, actual follies. He was out of bounds; he did not
+recognize himself; he had lost all control over himself; he even gave to
+those who did not expect anything.
+
+He met Claude Rigal, the old sergeant, who had left one of his arms at
+Sebastopol. He was growing gray--nay, white; for time passes, and the
+soldiers of the Crimea will soon be old men.
+
+"Here!" said the Cure, "I have twenty francs for you."
+
+"Twenty francs? But I never asked for anything; I don't want anything; I
+have my pension."
+
+His pension! Seven hundred francs!
+
+"But listen; it will be something to buy you cigars. It comes from
+America."
+
+And then followed the Abbe's little speech about the masters of
+Longueval.
+
+He went to a poor woman whose son had gone to Tunis.
+
+"Well, how is your son getting on?"
+
+"Not so bad, Monsieur le Cure; I had a letter from him yesterday. He
+does not complain; he is very well; only he says there are no Kroomirs.
+Poor boy! I have been saving for a month, and I think I shall soon be
+able to send him ten francs."
+
+"You shall send him thirty francs. Take this."
+
+"Thirty francs! Monsieur le Cure, you give me thirty francs?"
+
+"Yes, that is for you."
+
+"For my boy?"
+
+"For your boy. But listen; you must know from whom it comes, and you
+must take care to tell your son when you write to him."
+
+Again the little speech about the new owners of Longueval, and again the
+adjuration to remember them in their prayers. At six o'clock he returned
+home, exhausted with fatigue, but with his soul filled with joy.
+
+"I have given away all," he cried, as soon as he saw Pauline, "all! all!
+all!"
+
+He dined, and then went in the evening to perform the usual service
+for the month of Mary. But this time, the harmonium was silent; Miss
+Percival was no longer there.
+
+The little organist of the evening before was at that moment much
+perplexed. On two couches in her dressing-room were spread two frocks--a
+white and a blue. Bettina was meditating which of these two frocks she
+would wear to the opera that evening. After long hesitation she fixed on
+the blue. At half-past nine the two sisters ascended the grand staircase
+at the opera-house. Just as they entered their box the curtain rose on
+the second scene of the second act of Aida, that containing the ballet
+and march.
+
+Two young men, Roger de Puymartin and Louis de Martillet, were seated
+in the front of a stage-box. The young ladies of the corps de ballet
+had not yet appeared, and these gentlemen, having no occupation, were
+amusing themselves with looking about the house. The appearance of Miss
+Percival made a strong impression upon both.
+
+"Ah! ah!" said Puymartin, "there she is, the little golden nugget!"
+
+"She is perfectly dazzling this evening, this little golden nugget,"
+continued Martillet. "Look at her, at the line of her neck, the fall of
+her shoulders--still a young girl, and already a woman."
+
+"Yes, she is charming, and tolerably well off into the bargain."
+
+"Fifteen millions of her own, and the silver mine is still productive."
+
+"Berulle told me twenty-five millions, and he is very well up in
+American affairs."
+
+"Twenty-five millions! A pretty haul for Romanelli!"
+
+"What? Romanelli!"
+
+"Report says that that will be a match; that it is already settled."
+
+"A match may be arranged, but with Montessan, not with Romanelli. Ah! at
+last! Here is the ballet."
+
+They ceased to talk. The ballet in Aida lasts only five minutes, and
+for those five minutes they had come. Consequently they must be enjoyed
+respectfully, religiously, for there is that peculiarity among a number
+of the habitues of the opera, that they chatter like magpies when they
+ought to be silent, to listen, and that they observe the most absolute
+silence when they might be allowed to speak, while looking on.
+
+The trumpets of Aida had given their last heroic 'fanfare' in honor
+of Rhadames before the great sphinxes under the green foliage of the
+palm-trees, the dancers advanced, the light trembling on their spangled
+robes, and took possession of the stage.
+
+With much attention and pleasure Mrs. Scott followed the evolutions of
+the ballet, but Bettina had suddenly become thoughtful, on perceiving
+in a box, on the other side of the house, a tall, dark young man. Miss
+Percival talked to herself, and said:
+
+"What shall I do? What shall I decide on? Must I marry him, that
+handsome, tall fellow over there, who is watching me, for it is I that
+he is looking at? He will come into our box directly this act is over,
+and then I have only to say, 'I have decided; there is my hand; I will
+be your wife,' and then all would be settled! I should be Princess!
+Princess Romanelli! Princess Bettina! Bettina Romanelli! The names
+go well together; they sound very pretty. Would it amuse me to be a
+princess? Yes--and no! Among all the young men in Paris, who, during the
+last year, have run after my money, this Prince Romanelli is the one who
+pleases me best. One of these days I must make up my mind to marry. I
+think he loves me. Yes, but the question is, do I love him? No, I don't
+think I do, and I should so much like to love--so much, so much!"
+
+At the precise moment when these reflections were passing through
+Bettina's pretty head, Jean, alone in his study, seated before his desk
+with a great book under the shade of his lamp, looked through, and
+took notes of, the campaigns of Turenne. He had been directed to give a
+course of instruction to the non-commissioned officers of the regiment,
+and was prudently preparing his lesson for the next day.
+
+But in the midst of his notes--Nordlingen, 1645; les Dunes, 1658;
+Mulhausen and Turckheim, 1674-1675--he suddenly perceived (Jean did
+not draw very badly) a sketch, a woman's portrait, which all at once
+appeared under his pen. What was she doing there, in the middle
+of Turenne's victories, this pretty little woman? And then who was
+she--Mrs. Scott or Miss Percival? How could he tell? They resembled each
+other so much; and, laboriously, Jean returned to the history of the
+campaigns of Turenne.
+
+And at the same moment, the Abbe Constantin, on his knees before his
+little wooden bedstead, called down, with all the strength of his soul,
+the blessings of Heaven on the two women through whose bounty he had
+passed such a sweet and happy day. He prayed God to bless Mrs. Scott
+in her children, and to give to Miss Percival a husband after her own
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE FAIR AMERICANS
+
+Formerly Paris belonged to the Parisians, and that at no very remote
+period-thirty or forty years ago. At that epoch the French were
+the masters of Paris, as the English are the masters of London, the
+Spaniards of Madrid, and the Russians of St. Petersburg. Those times are
+no more. Other countries still have their frontiers; there are now
+none to France. Paris has become an immense Babel, a universal and
+international city. Foreigners do not only come to visit Paris; they
+come there to live. At the present day we have in Paris a Russian
+colony, a Spanish colony, a Levantine colony, an American colony.
+The foreigners have already conquered from us the greater part of the
+Champs-Elysees and the Boulevard Malesherbes; they advance, they extend
+their outworks; we retreat, pressed back by the invaders; we are obliged
+to expatriate ourselves. We have begun to found Parisian colonies in
+the plains of Passy, in the plain of Monceau, in quarters which formerly
+were not Paris at all, and which are not quite even now. Among the
+foreign colonies, the richest, the most populous, the most brilliant,
+is the American colony. There is a moment when an American feels himself
+rich enough, a Frenchman never. The American then stops, draws breath,
+and while still husbanding the capital, no longer spares the income. He
+knows how to spend, the Frenchman knows only how to save.
+
+The Frenchman has only one real luxury--his revolutions. Prudently and
+wisely he reserves himself for them, knowing well that they will
+cost France dear, but that, at the same time, they will furnish the
+opportunity for advantageous investments. The Frenchman says to himself:
+
+"Let us hoard! let us hoard! let us hoard! Some of these mornings there
+will be a revolution, which will make the 5 per cents. fall 50 or 60
+francs. I will buy then. Since revolutions are inevitable, let us try at
+least to make them profitable."
+
+They are always talking about the people who are ruined by revolutions,
+but perhaps the number of those enriched by revolutions is still
+greater.
+
+The Americans experience the attraction of Paris very strongly. There
+is no town in the world where it is easier or more agreeable to spend
+a great dial of money. For many reasons, both of race and origin, this
+attraction exercised over Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival a very remarkable
+power.
+
+The most French of our colonies is Canada, which is no longer ours.
+The recollection of their first home has been preserved faithfully and
+tenderly in the hearts of the emigrants to Montreal and Quebec. Susie
+Percival had received from her mother an entirely French education, and
+she had brought up her sister in the same love of our country. The two
+sisters felt themselves Frenchwomen; still better, Parisians. As soon as
+the avalanche of dollars had descended upon them, the same desire seized
+them both--to come and live in Paris. They demanded France as if it had
+been their fatherland. Mr. Scott made some opposition.
+
+"If I go away from here," he said, "your incomes will suffer."
+
+"What does that matter?" replied Susie. "We are rich--too rich. Do let
+us go. We shall be so happy, so delighted!"
+
+Mr. Scott allowed himself to be persuaded, and, at the beginning of
+January, 1880, Susie wrote the following letter to her friend, Katie
+Norton, who had lived in Paris for some years:
+
+"Victory! It is decided! Richard has consented. I shall arrive in
+April, and become a Frenchwoman again. You offered to undertake all the
+preparations for our settlement in Paris. I am horribly presuming--I
+accept! When I arrive in Paris, I should like to be able to enjoy Paris,
+and not be obliged to lose my first month in running after upholsterers,
+coach-builders, horse-dealers. I should like, on arriving at the railway
+station, to find awaiting me my carriage, my coachman, my horses. That
+very day I should like you to dine with me at my home. Hire or buy a
+mansion, engage the servants, choose the horses, the carriages, the
+liveries. I depend entirely upon you. As long as the liveries are blue,
+that is the only point. This line is added at the request of Bettina.
+
+"We shall bring only seven persons with us. Richard will have his valet,
+Bettina and I two ladies' maids; then there are the two governesses for
+the children, and, besides these, two boys, Toby and Bobby, who ride to
+perfection. We should never find in Paris such a perfect pair.
+
+"Everything else, people and things, we shall leave in New York. No, not
+quite everything; I had for gotten four little ponies, four little gems,
+black as ink. We have not the heart to leave them; we shall drive them
+in a phaeton; it is delightful. Both Bettina and I drive four-in-hand
+very well. Ladies can drive four-in-hand in the Bois very early in
+the morning; can't they? Here it is quite possible. Above all, my dear
+Katie, do not consider money. Be as extravagant as you like, that is all
+I ask." The same day that Mrs. Norton received this letter witnessed the
+failure of a certain Garneville. He was a great speculator who had been
+on a false scent. Stocks had fallen just when he had expected a rise.
+This Garneville had, six weeks before, installed himself in a brand-new
+house, which had no other fault than a too startling magnificence. Mrs.
+Norton signed an agreement--100,000 francs a year, with the option
+of buying house and furniture for 2,000,000 during the first year of
+possession. A famous upholsterer undertook to correct and subdue the
+exaggerated splendor of a loud and gorgeous luxury. That done, Mrs.
+Scott's friend had the good fortune to lay her hand on two of those
+eminent artists without whom the routine of a great house can neither be
+established nor carried on. The first, a chef of the first rank, who had
+just left an ancient mansion of the Faubourg St. Germain, to his great
+regret, for he had aristocratic inclinations.
+
+"Never," said he to Mrs. Norton, "never would I have left the service
+of Madame la Duchesse if she had kept up her establishment on the same
+footing as formerly; but Madame la Duchesse has four children--two sons
+who have run through a good deal, and two daughters who will soon be
+of an age to marry; they must have their dowries. Therefore, Madame
+la Duchesse is obliged to draw in a little, and the house is no longer
+important enough for me."
+
+This distinguished character, of course, made his conditions. Though
+excessive, they did not alarm Mrs. Norton, who knew that he was a man
+of the most serious merit; but he, before deciding, asked permission to
+telegraph to New York. He wished to make certain inquiries. The reply
+was favorable; he accepted.
+
+The second great artist was a stud-groom of the rarest and highest
+capacity, who was just about to retire after having made his fortune.
+He consented, however, to organize the stables for Mrs. Scott. It was
+thoroughly understood that he should have every liberty in purchasing
+the horses, that he should wear no livery, that he should choose the
+coachmen, the grooms, and everyone connected with the stables; that
+he should never have less than fifteen horses in the stables, that no
+bargain should be made with the coach-builder or saddler without his
+intervention, and that he should never mount the box, except early in
+the morning, in plain clothes, to give lessons in driving to the ladies
+and children, if necessary.
+
+The cook took possession of his stores, and the stud-groom of his
+stables. Everything else was only a question of money, and with regard
+to this Mrs. Norton made full use of her extensive powers. She acted in
+conformity with the instructions she had received. In the short space of
+two months she performed prodigies, and that is how, when, on the 15th
+of April, 1880, Mr. Scott, Susie, and Bettina alighted from the mail
+train from Havre, at half-past four in the afternoon, they found Mrs.
+Norton at the station of St. Lazare, who said:
+
+"Your caleche is there in the yard; behind it is a landau for the
+children; and behind the landau is an omnibus for the servants. The
+three carriages bear your monogram, are driven by your coachman, and
+drawn by your horses. Your address is 24 Rue Murillo, and here is the
+menu of your dinner to-night. You invited me two months ago; I accept,
+and will even take the liberty of bringing a dozen friends with me. I
+shall furnish everything, even the guests. But do not be alarmed; you
+know them all; they are mutual friends, and this evening we shall be
+able to judge of the merits of your cook."
+
+The first Parisian who had the honor and pleasure of paying homage to
+the beauty of Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival was a little Marmiton fifteen
+years old, who stood there in his white clothes, his wicker basket on
+his head, at the moment when Mrs. Scott's carriage, entangled in the
+multitude of vehicles, slowly worked its way out of the station. The
+little cook stopped short on the pavement, opened wide his eyes, looked
+at the two sisters with amazement, and boldly cast full in their faces
+the single word:
+
+"Mazette!"
+
+When Madame Recamier saw her first wrinkles, and first gray hairs, she
+said to a friend:
+
+"Ah! my dear, there are no more illusions left for me! From the day
+when I saw that the little chimney-sweeps no longer turned round in the
+street to look at me, I understood that all was over."
+
+The opinion of the confectioners' boys is, in similar cases, of equal
+value with the opinion of the little chimney-sweeps. All was not over
+for Susie and Bettina; on the contrary, all was only beginning.
+
+Five minutes later, Mrs. Scott's carriage was ascending the Boulevard
+Haussmann to the slow and measured trot of a pair of admirable horses.
+Paris counted two Parisians the more.
+
+The success of Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival was immediate, decisive,
+like a flash of lightning. The beauties of Paris are not classed and
+catalogued like the beauties of London; they do not publish their
+portraits in the illustrated papers, or allow their photographs to
+be sold at the stationers. However, there is always a little staff,
+consisting of a score of women, who represent the grace, and charm, and
+beauty of Paris, which women, after ten or twelve years' service,
+pass into the reserve, just like the old generals. Susie and Bettina
+immediately became part of this little staff. It was an affair of
+four-and-twenty hours--of less than four-and-twenty hours, for all
+passed between eight in the morning and midnight, the day after their
+arrival in Paris.
+
+Imagine a sort of little 'feerie', in three acts, of which the success
+increases from tableau to tableau:
+
+1st. A ride at ten in the morning in the Bois, with the two marvellous
+grooms imported from America.
+
+2d. A walk at six o'clock in the Allee des Acacias.
+
+3d. An appearance at the opera at ten in the evening in Mrs. Norton's
+box.
+
+The two novelties were immediately remarked, and appreciated as they
+deserved to be, by the thirty or forty persons who constitute a sort of
+mysterious tribunal, and who, in the name of all Paris, pass sentence
+beyond appeal. These thirty or forty persons have, from time to time,
+the fancy to declare "delicious" some woman who is manifestly ugly. That
+is enough; she is "delicious" from that moment.
+
+The beauty of the two sisters was unquestionable. In the morning, it was
+their grace, their elegance, their distinction that attracted universal
+admiration; in the afternoon, it was declared that their walk had the
+freedom and ease of two young goddesses; in the evening, there was but
+one cry of rapture at the ideal perfection of their shoulders. From
+that moment, all Paris had for the two sisters the eyes of the little
+pastry-cook of the Rue d'Amsterdam; all Paris repeated his 'Mazette',
+though naturally with the variations and developments imposed by the
+usages of the world.
+
+Mrs. Scott's drawing-room immediately became the fashion. The habitues
+of three or four great American houses transferred themselves to the
+Scotts, who had three hundred persons at their first Wednesday. Their
+circle increased; there was a little of everything to be found in their
+set--Americans, Spaniards, Italians, Hungarians, Russians, and even
+Parisians.
+
+When she had related her history to the Abbe Constantin, Mrs. Scott had
+not told all--one never does tell all. In a word, she was a coquette.
+Mr. Scott had the most perfect confidence in his wife, and left her
+entire liberty. He appeared very little; he was an honorable man, who
+felt a vague embarrassment at having made such a marriage, at having
+married so much money.
+
+Having a taste for business, he had great pleasure in devoting himself
+entirely to the administering of the two immense fortunes which were in
+his hands, in continually increasing them, and in saying every year to
+his wife and sister in-law:
+
+"You are still richer than you were last year!"
+
+Not content with watching with much prudence and ability over the
+interests which he had left in America, he launched in France into large
+speculations, and was as successful in Paris as he had been in New York.
+In order to make money, the first thing is to have no need of it.
+
+They made love to Mrs. Scott to an enormous extent; they made love to
+her in French, in Italian, in English, in Spanish; for she knew those
+four languages, and there is one advantage that foreigners have over our
+poor Parisians, who usually know only their mother tongue, and have not
+the resource of international passions.
+
+Naturally, Mrs. Scott did not drive her adorers from her presence. She
+had ten, twenty, thirty at a time.
+
+No one could boast of any preference; to all she opposed the same
+amiable, laughing, joyous resistance. It was clear to all that the game
+amused her, and that she did not for a moment take it seriously. Mr.
+Scott never felt a moment's anxiety, and he was perfectly right. More,
+he enjoyed his wife's successes; he was happy in seeing her happy. He
+loved her dearly--a little more than she loved him. She loved him very
+much, and that was all. There is a great difference between dearly and
+very much when these two adverbs are placed after the verb to love.
+
+As to Bettina, around her was a maddening whirl, an orgy of adulation.
+Such fortune! Such beauty! Miss Percival arrived in Paris on the 15th of
+April; a fortnight had not passed before the offers of marriage began
+to pour upon her. In the course of that first year, she might, had she
+wished it, have been married thirty-four times, and to what a variety of
+suitors!
+
+They asked her hand for a young exile, who, under certain circumstances,
+might be called to ascend a throne--a very small one, it is true, but a
+throne nevertheless.
+
+They asked her hand for a young duke, who would make a great figure at
+Court when France--as was inevitable--should recognize her errors, and
+bow down before her legitimate masters.
+
+They asked her hand for a young prince, who would have a place on the
+steps of the throne when France--as was inevitable--should again knit
+together the chain of the Napoleonic traditions.
+
+They asked her hand for a young Republican deputy, who had just made a
+most brilliant debut in the Chamber, and for whom the future reserved
+the most splendid destiny, for the Republic was now established in
+France on the most indestructible basis.
+
+They asked her hand for a young Spaniard of the purest lineage, and she
+was given to understand that the 'contrat' would be signed in the palace
+of a queen, who does not live far from the Arc de Triomphe. Besides, one
+can find her address in the 'Almanach Bottin', for at the present day,
+there are queens who have their address in Bottin between an attorney
+and a druggist; it is only the kings of France who no longer live in
+France.
+
+They asked her hand for the son of a peer of England, and for the son of
+a member of the highest Viennese aristocracy; for the son of a Parisian
+banker, and for the son of a Russian ambassador; for a Hungarian count,
+and for an Italian prince; and also for various excellent young men who
+were nothing and had nothing--neither name nor fortune; but Bettina had
+granted them a waltz, and, believing themselves irresistible, they hoped
+that they had caused a flutter of that little heart.
+
+But up to the present moment nothing had touched that little heart, and
+the reply had been the same to all "No! no!" again "No!" always "No!"
+
+Some days after that performance of Aida, the two sisters had a rather
+long conversation on this great, this eternal question of marriage. A
+certain name had been pronounced by Mrs. Scott which had provoked on the
+part of Miss Percival the most decided and most energetic refusal, and
+Susie had laughingly said to her sister:
+
+"But, Bettina, you will be obliged to end by marrying."
+
+"Yes, certainly, but I should be so sorry to marry without love. It
+seems to me that before I could resolve to do such a thing I must be in
+danger of dying an old maid, and I am not yet that."
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"Let us wait, let us wait."
+
+"Let us wait. But among all these lovers whom you have been dragging
+after you for the last year, there have been some very nice, very
+amiable, and it is really a little strange if none of them--"
+
+"None, my Susie, none, absolutely none. Why should I not tell you the
+truth? Is it their fault? Have they gone unskilfully to work? Could
+they, in managing better, have found the way to my heart? or is the
+fault in me? Is it perhaps, that the way to my heart is a steep, rocky,
+inaccessible way, by which no one will ever pass? Am I a horrid little
+creature, and, cold, and condemned never to love?"
+
+"I do not think so."
+
+"Neither do I, but up to the present time that is my history. No, I have
+never felt anything which resembled love. You are laughing, and I
+can guess why. You are saying to yourself, 'A little girl like that
+pretending to know what love is!' You are right; I do not know, but
+I have a pretty good idea. To love--is it not to prefer to all in the
+world one certain person?"
+
+"Yes; it is really that."
+
+"Is it not never to weary of seeing that person, or of hearing him? Is
+it not to cease to live when he is not there, and to immediately begin
+to revive when he reappears?"
+
+"Oh, but this is romantic love."
+
+"Well, that is the love of which I dream, and that is the love which
+does not come--not at all till now; and yet that person preferred by me
+to all and everything does exist. Do you know who it is?"
+
+"No, I do not know; I do not know, but I have a little suspicion."
+
+"Yes, it is you, my dearest, and it is perhaps you, naughty sister, who
+makes me so insensible and cruel on this point. I love you too much; you
+fill my heart; you have occupied it entirely; there is no room for any
+one else. Prefer any one to you! Love any one more than you! That will
+never, never be!"
+
+"Oh, yes, it will."
+
+"Oh, no. Love differently, perhaps, but more--no. He must not count upon
+that, this gentleman whom I expect, and who does not arrive."
+
+"Do not be afraid, my Betty, there is room in your heart for all whom
+you should love--for your husband, for your children, and that without
+your old sister losing anything. The heart is very little, but it is
+also very large."
+
+Bettina tenderly embraced her sister; then, resting her head coaxingly
+on Susie's shoulder, she said:
+
+"If, however, you are tired of keeping me with you, if you are in a
+hurry to get rid of me, do you know what I will do? I will put the names
+of two of these gentlemen in a basket, and draw lots. There are two who
+at the last extremity would not be absolutely disagreeable."
+
+"Which two?"
+
+"Guess."
+
+"Prince Romanelli."
+
+"For one! And the other?"
+
+"Monsieur de Montessan."
+
+"Those are the two! It is just that. Those two would be acceptable, but
+only acceptable, and that is not enough."
+
+This is why Bettina awaited with extreme impatience the day when she
+should leave Paris, and take up their abode in Longueval. She was a
+little tired of so much pleasure, so much success, so many offers
+of marriage. The whirlpool of Parisian gayety had seized her on her
+arrival, and would not let her go, not for one hour of halt or rest. She
+felt the need of being given up to herself for a few days, to herself
+alone, to consult and question herself at her leisure, in the complete
+solitude of the country-in a word, to belong to herself again.
+
+Was not Bettina all sprightly and joyous when, on the 14th of June, they
+took the train for Longueval? As soon as she was alone in a coupe with
+her sister:
+
+"Ah!" she cried, "how happy I am! Let us breathe a little, quite alone,
+you and me, for a few days. The Nortons and Turners do not come till the
+25th, do they?"
+
+"No, not till the 25th."
+
+"We will pass our lives riding or driving in the woods, in the fields.
+Ten days of liberty! And during those ten days no more lovers, no more
+lovers! And all those lovers, with what are they in love, with me or my
+money? That is the mystery, the unfathomable mystery."
+
+The engine whistled; the train put itself slowly into motion. A wild
+idea entered Bettina's head. She leaned out of the window and cried,
+accompanying her words with a little wave of the hand:
+
+"Good-by, my lovers, good-by."
+
+Then she threw herself suddenly into a corner of the coupe with a hearty
+burst of laughter.
+
+"Oh, Susie, Susie!"
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+"A man with a red flag in his hand; he saw me, and he looked so
+astonished."
+
+"You are so irrational!"
+
+"Yes, it is true, to have called out of the window like that, but not to
+be happy at thinking that we are going to live alone, 'en garcons'."
+
+"Alone! alone! Not exactly that. To begin with, we shall have two people
+to dinner to-night."
+
+"Ah! that is true. But those two people, I shall not be at all sorry to
+see them again. Yes, I shall be well pleased to see the old Cure again,
+but especially the young officer."
+
+"What! especially?"
+
+"Certainly; because what the lawyer from Souvigny told us the other day
+is so touching, and what that great artilleryman did when he was quite
+little was so good, so good, that this evening I shall seek for an
+opportunity of telling him what I think of it, and I shall find one."
+
+Then Bettina, abruptly changing the course of the conversation,
+continued:
+
+"Did they send the telegram yesterday to Edwards about the ponies?"
+
+"Yes, yesterday before dinner."
+
+"Oh, you will let me drive them up to the house. It will be such fun
+to go through the town, and to drive up at full speed into the court in
+front of the entrance. Tell me, will you?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, you shall drive the ponies."
+
+"Oh, how nice of you, Susie!"
+
+Edwards was the stud-groom. He had arrived at Longueval three days
+before. He deigned to come himself--to meet Mrs. Scott and Miss
+Percival. He brought the phaeton drawn by the four black ponies. He was
+waiting at the station. The passage of the ponies through the principal
+street of the town had made a sensation. The population rushed out of
+their houses, and asked eagerly:
+
+"What is it? What can it be?"
+
+Some ventured the opinion:
+
+"It is, perhaps, a travelling circus."
+
+But exclamations arose on all sides:
+
+"You did not notice the style of it--the carriage and the harness
+shining like gold, and the little horses with their white rosettes on
+each side of the head."
+
+The crowd collected around the station, and those who were curious
+learned that they were going to witness the arrival of the new owners
+of Longueval. They were slightly disenchanted when the two sisters
+appeared, very pretty, but in very simple travelling costumes.
+
+These good people had almost expected the apparition of two princesses
+out of fairy tales, clad in silk and brocade, sparkling with rubies and
+diamonds. But they opened wide their eyes when they saw Bettina walk
+slowly round the four ponies, caressing one after another lightly with
+her hand, and examining all the details of the team with the air of a
+connoisseur.
+
+Having made her inspection, Bettina, without the least hurry, drew off
+her long Swedish gloves, and replaced them by a pair of dog-skin which
+she took from the pocket of the carriage apron. Then she slipped on to
+the box in the place of Edwards, receiving from him the reins and whip
+with extreme dexterity, without allowing the already excited horses to
+perceive that they had changed hands.
+
+Mrs. Scott seated herself beside her sister. The ponies pranced,
+curveted, and threatened to rear.
+
+"Be very careful, miss," said Edwards; "the ponies are very fresh
+to-day."
+
+"Do not be afraid," replied Bettina. "I know them."
+
+Miss Percival had a hand at once very firm, very light, and very just.
+She held in the ponies for a few moments, forcing them to keep their own
+places; then, waving the long thong of her whip round the leaders, she
+started her little team at once, with incomparable skill, and left
+the station with an air of triumph, in the midst of a long murmur of
+astonishment and admiration.
+
+The trot of the black ponies rang on the little oval paving-stones of
+Souvigny. Bettina held them well together until she had left the
+town, but as soon as she saw before her a clear mile and a half of
+highroad-almost on a dead level-she let them gradually increase their
+speed, till they went like the wind.
+
+"Oh! how happy I am, Susie!" cried she; "and we shall trot and gallop
+all alone on these roads. Susie, would you like to drive? It is such a
+delight when one can let them go at full speed. They are so spirited and
+so gentle. Come, take the reins."
+
+"No; keep them. It is a greater pleasure to me to see you happy."
+
+"Oh, as to that, I am perfectly happy. I do like so much to drive
+four-in-hand with plenty of space before me. At Paris, even in the
+morning, I did not dare to any longer. They looked at me so, it annoyed
+me. But here--no one! no one! no one!"
+
+At the moment when Bettina, already a little intoxicated with
+the bracing air and liberty, gave forth triumphantly these three
+exclamations, "No one! no one! no one!" a rider appeared, walking his
+horse in the direction of the carriage. It was Paul de Lavardens. He
+had been watching for more than an hour for the pleasure of seeing the
+Americans pass.
+
+"You are mistaken," said Susie to Bettina; "there is some one."
+
+"A peasant; they don't count; they won't ask me to marry them."
+
+"It is not a peasant at all. Look!"
+
+Paul de Lavardens, while passing the carriage, made the two sisters a
+highly correct bow, from which one at once scented the Parisian.
+
+The ponies were going at such a rate that the meeting was over like a
+flash of lightning.
+
+Bettina cried:
+
+"Who is that gentleman who has just bowed to us?"
+
+"I had scarcely time to see, but I seemed to recognize him."
+
+"You recognized him?"
+
+"Yes, and I would wager that I have seen him at our house this winter."
+
+"Heavens! if it should be one of the thirty-four! Is all that going to
+begin again?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A LITTLE DINNER FOR FOUR
+
+That same day, at half-past seven, Jean went to fetch the Cure, and the
+two walked together up to the house. During the last month a perfect
+army of workmen had taken possession of Longueval; all the inns in the
+village were making their fortunes.
+
+Enormous furniture wagons brought cargoes of furniture and decorations
+from Paris. Forty-eight hours before the arrival of Mrs. Scott,
+Mademoiselle Marbeau, the postmistress, and Madame Lormier, the
+mayoress, had wormed themselves into the castle, and the account they
+gave of the interior turned every one's head. The old furniture
+had disappeared, banished to the attics; one moved among a perfect
+accumulation of wonders. And the stables! and the coach-houses! A
+special train had brought from Paris, under the high superintendence of
+Edwards, a dozen carriages--and such carriages! Twenty horses--and such
+horses!
+
+The Abbe Constantin thought that he knew what luxury was. Once a year he
+dined with his bishop, Monseigneur Faubert, a rich and amiable prelate,
+who entertained rather largely. The Cure, till now, had, thought that
+there was nothing in the world more sumptuous than the Episcopal palace
+of Souvigny, or the castles of Lavardens and Longueval.
+
+He began to understand, from what he was told of the new splendors of
+Longueval, that the luxury of the great houses of the present day must
+surpass to a singular degree the sober and severe luxury of the great
+houses of former times.
+
+As soon as the Cure and Jean had entered the avenue in the park, which
+led to the house:
+
+"Look! Jean," said the Cure; "what a change! All this part of the park
+used to be quite neglected, and now all the paths are gravelled and
+raked. I shall not be able to feel myself at home as I used to do:
+it will be too grand. I shall not find again my old brown velvet
+easy-chair, in which I so often fell asleep after dinner, and if I fall
+asleep this evening what will become of me? You will think of it, Jean,
+and if you see that I begin to forget myself, you will come behind me
+and pinch my arm gently, won't you? You promise me?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly, I promise you."
+
+Jean paid but slight attention to the conversation of the Cure. He felt
+extremely impatient to see Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival again, but this
+impatience was mingled with very keen anxiety. Would he find them in
+the great salon at Longueval the same as he had seen them in the little
+dining-room at the vicarage? Perhaps, instead of those two women, so
+perfectly simple and familiar, amusing themselves with this little
+improvised dinner, and who, the very first day, had treated him with
+so much grace and cordiality, would he find two pretty dolls-worldly,
+elegant, cold, and correct? Would his first impression be effaced? Would
+it disappear? or, on the contrary, would the impression in his heart
+become still sweeter and deeper?
+
+They ascended the six steps at the entrance, and were received in the
+hall by two tall footmen with the most dignified and imposing air. This
+hall had formerly been a vast, frigid apartment, with bare stone walls.
+These walls were now covered with admirable tapestry, representing
+mythological subjects. The Cure dared scarcely glance at this tapestry;
+it was enough for him to perceive that the goddesses who wandered
+through these shades wore costumes of antique simplicity.
+
+One of the footmen opened wide the folding-doors of the salon. It was
+there that one had generally found the old Marquise, on the right of
+the high chimney-piece, and on the left had stood the brown velvet
+easy-chair.
+
+No brown easy-chair now! That old relic of the Empire, which was the
+basis of the arrangement of the salon, had been replaced by a marvellous
+specimen of tapestry of the end of the last century. Then a crowd of
+little easy-chairs, and ottomans of all forms and all colors, were
+scattered here and there with an appearance of disorder which was the
+perfection of art.
+
+As soon as Mrs. Scott saw the Cure and Jean enter, she rose, and going
+to meet them, said:
+
+"How kind of you to come, Monsieur le Cure, and you, too, Monsieur Jean.
+How pleased I am to see you, my first, my only friends down here!"
+
+Jean breathed again. It was the same woman.
+
+"Will you allow me," added Mrs. Scott, "to introduce my children to you?
+Harry and Bella, come here."
+
+Harry was a very pretty little boy of six, and Bella a very charming
+little girl, five years old. They had their mother's large, dark eyes,
+and her golden hair.
+
+After the Cure had kissed the two children, Harry, who was looking with
+admiration at Jean's uniform, said to his mother:
+
+"And the soldier, mamma, must we kiss him, too?"
+
+"If you like," replied Mrs. Scott, "and if he will allow it."
+
+A moment after, the two children were installed upon Jean's knees, and
+overwhelming him with questions.
+
+"Are you an officer?"
+
+"Yes, I am an officer."
+
+"What in?"
+
+"In the artillery."
+
+"The artillery! Oh, you are one of the men who fire the cannon. Oh, how
+I should like to be quite near when they fire the cannon!"
+
+"Will you take us some day when they fire the cannon? Tell me, will
+you?"
+
+Meanwhile, Mrs. Scott chatted with the Cure, and Jean, while replying to
+the children's questions, looked at Mrs. Scott. She wore a white muslin
+frock, but the muslin disappeared under a complete avalanche of little
+flounces of Valenciennes. The dress was cut out in front in a large
+square, her arms were bare to the elbow, a large bouquet of red roses at
+the opening of her dress, a red rose fixed in her hair, with a diamond
+'agraffe'--nothing more.
+
+Mrs. Scott suddenly perceived that the children had taken entire
+possession of Jean, and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon. Harry, Bella!"
+
+"Oh, pray let them stay with me."
+
+"I am so sorry to keep you waiting for dinner; my sister is not down
+yet. Oh! here she is!"
+
+Bettina entered. The same frock of white muslin, the same delicate mass
+of lace, the same red roses, the same grace, the same beauty, and the
+same smiling, amiable, candid manner.
+
+"How do you do, Monsieur le Cure? I am delighted to see you. Have you
+pardoned my dreadful intrusion of the other day?"
+
+Then, turning toward Jean and offering him her hand:
+
+"How do you do, Monsieur--Monsieur--Oh! I can not remember your name,
+and yet we seem to be already old friends, Monsieur--"
+
+"Jean Reynaud."
+
+"Jean Reynaud, that is it. How do you do, Monsieur Reynaud? I warn you
+faithfully that when we really are old friends--that is to say, in about
+a week--I shall call you Monsieur Jean. It is a pretty name, Jean."
+
+Up to the moment when Bettina appeared Jean had said to himself:
+
+"Mrs. Scott is the prettier!"
+
+When he felt Bettina's little hand slip into his arm, and when she
+turned toward him her delicious face, he said:
+
+"Miss Percival is the prettier!"
+
+But his perplexities gathered round him again when he was seated between
+the two sisters. If he looked to the right, love threatened him from
+that direction, and if he looked to the left, the danger removed
+immediately, and passed to the left.
+
+Conversation began, easy, animated, confidential. The two sisters were
+charmed; they had already walked in the park; they promised themselves
+a long ride in the forest tomorrow. Riding was their passion, their
+madness. It was also Jean's passion, so that after a quarter of an hour
+they begged him to join them the next day. There was no one who knew the
+country round better than he did; it was his native place. He should be
+so happy to do the honors of it, and to show them numbers of delightful
+little spots which, without him, they would never discover.
+
+"Do you ride every day?" asked Bettina.
+
+"Every day and sometimes twice. In the morning on duty, and in the
+evening I am ride for my own pleasure."
+
+"Early in the morning?"
+
+"At half-past five."
+
+"At half-past five every morning?"
+
+"Yes, except Sunday."
+
+"Then you get up--"
+
+"At half-past four."
+
+"And is it light?"
+
+"Oh, just now, broad daylight."
+
+"To get up at half-past four is admirable; we often finish our day just
+when yours is beginning. And are you fond of your profession?"
+
+"Very. It is an excellent thing to have one's life plain before one,
+with exact and definite duties."
+
+"And yet," said Mrs. Scott, "not to be one's own master--to be always
+obliged to obey."
+
+"That is perhaps what suits me best; there is nothing easier than to
+obey, and then to learn to obey is the only way of learning to command."
+
+"Ah! since you say so, it must be true."
+
+"Yes, no doubt," added the Cure; "but he does not tell you that he is
+the most distinguished officer in his regiment, that--"
+
+"Oh! pray do not."
+
+The Cure, in spite of the resistance of Jean, was about to launch into a
+panegyric on his godson, when Bettina, interposing, said:
+
+"It is unnecessary, Monsieur le Cure, do not say anything, we know
+already all that you would tell us, we have been so indiscreet as to
+make inquiries about Monsieur--oh, I was just going to say Monsieur
+Jean--about Monsieur Reynaud. Well, the information we received was
+excellent!"
+
+"I am curious to know," said Jean.
+
+"Nothing! nothing! you shall know nothing. I do not wish to make you
+blush, and you would be obliged to blush."
+
+Then turning toward the Cure, "And about you, too, Monsieur l'Abbe, we
+have had some information. It appears that you are a saint."
+
+"Oh! as to that, it is perfectly true," cried Jean.
+
+It was the Cure this time who cut short the eloquence of Jean. Dinner
+was almost over. The old priest had not got through this dinner without
+experiencing many emotions. They had repeatedly presented to him
+complicated and scientific constructions upon which he had only ventured
+with a trembling hand. He was afraid of seeing the whole crumble beneath
+his touch; the trembling castles of jelly, the pyramids of truffles, the
+fortresses of cream, the bastions of pastry, the rocks of ice. Otherwise
+the Abbe Constantin dined with an excellent appetite, and did not recoil
+before two or three glasses of champagne. He was no foe to good cheer;
+perfection is not of this world; and if gormandizing were, as they say,
+a cardinal sin, how many good priests would be damned!
+
+Coffee was served on the terrace in front of the house; in the distance
+was heard the harsh voice of the old village clock striking nine. Woods
+and fields were slumbering; the avenues in the park showed only as long,
+undulating, and undecided lines. The moon slowly rose over the tops of
+the great trees.
+
+Bettina took a box of cigars from the table. "Do you smoke?" said she.
+
+"Yes, Miss Percival."
+
+"Take one, Monsieur Jean. It can't be helped. I have said it. Take
+one--but no, listen to me first."
+
+And speaking in a low voice, while offering him the box of cigars:
+
+"It is getting dark, now you may blush at your ease. I will tell you
+what I did not say at dinner. An old lawyer in Souvigny, who was your
+guardian, came to see my sister in Paris, about the payment for the
+place; he told us what you did after your father's death, when you were
+only a child, what you did for that poor mother, and for that poor young
+girl. Both my sister and I were much touched by it."
+
+"Yes," continued Mrs. Scott, "and that is why we have received you
+to-day with so much pleasure. We should not have given such a reception
+to every one, of that you may be sure. Well, now take your cigar, my
+sister is waiting."
+
+Jean could not find a word in reply. Bettina stood there with the box
+of cigars in her two hands, her eyes fixed frankly on the countenance
+of Jean. At the moment, she tasted a true and keen pleasure which may be
+expressed by this phrase:
+
+"It seems to me that I see before me a man of honor."
+
+"And now," said Mrs. Scott, "let us sit here and enjoy this delicious
+night; take your coffee, smoke--"
+
+"And do not let us talk, Susie, do not let us talk. This great
+silence of the country, after the great noise and bustle of Paris, is
+delightful! Let us sit here without speaking; let us look at the sky,
+the moon, and the stars."
+
+All four, with much pleasure, carried out this little programme. Susie
+and Bettina, calm, reposeful, absolutely separated from their existence
+of yesterday, already felt a tenderness for the place which had just
+received them, and was going to keep them. Jean was less tranquil; the
+words of Miss Percival had caused him profound emotion, his heart had
+not yet quite regained its regular throb.
+
+But the happiest of all was the Abbe Constantin.
+
+This little episode which had caused Jean's modesty such a rude, yet
+sweet trial, had brought him exquisite joy, the Abbe bore his godson
+such affection. The most tender father never loved more warmly the
+dearest of his children. When the old Cure looked at the young officer,
+he often said to himself:
+
+"Heaven has been too kind; I am a priest, and I have a son!"
+
+The Abbe sank into a very agreeable reverie; he felt himself at home,
+he felt himself too much at home; by degrees his ideas became hazy and
+confused, reverie became drowsiness, drowsiness became slumber, the
+disaster was soon complete, irreparable; the Cure slept, and slept
+profoundly. This marvellous dinner, and the two or three glasses of
+champagne may have had something to do with the catastrophe.
+
+Jean perceived nothing; he had forgotten the promise made to his
+godfather. And why had he forgotten it? Because Mrs. Scott and Miss
+Percival had thought proper to put their feet on the footstools, placed
+in front of their great wicker garden-chairs filled with cushions; then
+they had thrown themselves lazily back in their chairs, and their muslin
+skirts had become raised a little, a very little, but yet enough to
+display four little feet, the lines of which showed very distinctly and
+clearly beneath two pretty clouds of white lace. Jean looked at these
+little feet, and asked himself this question:
+
+"Which are the smaller?"
+
+While he was trying to solve this problem, Bettina, all at once, said to
+him in a low voice:
+
+"Monsieur Jean! Monsieur Jean!"
+
+"Miss Percival?"
+
+"Look at the Cure, he is asleep."
+
+"Oh! it is my fault."
+
+"How your fault?" asked Mrs. Scott, also in a low voice.
+
+"Yes; my godfather rises at daybreak, and goes to bed very early;
+he told me to be sure and prevent his falling asleep; when Madame de
+Longueval was here he very often had a nap after dinner. You have shown
+him so much kindness that he has fallen back into his old habits."
+
+"And he is perfectly right," said Bettina, "do not make a noise, do not
+wake him."
+
+"You are too good, Miss Percival, but the air is getting a little
+fresh."
+
+"Ah! that is true, he might catch cold. Stay, I will go and fetch a wrap
+for him."
+
+"I think, Miss Percival, it would be better to try and wake him
+skilfully, so that he should not suspect that you had seen him asleep."
+
+"Let me do it," said Bettina. "Susie, let us sing together, very softly
+at first, then we will raise our voices little by little, let us sing."
+
+"Willingly, but what shall we sing?"
+
+"Let us sing, 'Quelque chose d'enfantin,' the words are suitable."
+
+Susie and Bettina began to sing:
+
+          If I had but two little wings,
+          And were a little feathery bird,
+
+Their sweet and penetrating voices had an exquisite sonority in that
+profound silence. The Abbe heard nothing, did not move. Charmed with
+this little concert, Jean said to himself:
+
+"Heaven grant that my godfather may not wake too soon!"
+
+The voices became clearer and louder:
+
+          But in my sleep to you I fly,
+          I'm always with you in my sleep.
+
+Yet the Abbe did not stir.
+
+"How he sleeps," said Susie, "it is a crime to wake him."
+
+"But we must; louder, Susie, louder."
+
+Susie and Bettina both gave free scope to the power of their voices.
+
+          Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids,
+          So I love to wake ere break of day.
+
+The Cure woke with a start. After a short moment of anxiety he breathed
+again. Evidently no one had noticed that he had been asleep. He
+collected himself, stretched himself prudently, slowly, he was saved!
+
+A quarter of an hour later the two sisters accompanied the Cure and
+Jean to the little gate of the park, which opened into the village a few
+yards from the vicarage; they had nearly reached the gate when Bettina
+said all at once to Jean:
+
+"Ah! all this time I have had a question to ask you. This morning when
+we arrived, we met on the way a slight young man, with a fair mustache,
+he was riding a black horse, and bowed to us as we passed."
+
+"It was Paul de Lavardens, one of my friends; he has already had the
+honor of being introduced to you, but rather vaguely, and his ambition
+is to be presented again."
+
+"Well, you shall bring him one of these days," said Mrs. Scott.
+
+"After the 25th!" cried Bettina. "Not before! not before! No one till
+then; till then we will see no one but you, Monsieur Jean. But you, it
+is very extraordinary, and I don't quite know how it has happened,
+you don't seem anybody to us. The compliment is perhaps not very well
+turned, but do not make a mistake, it is a compliment. I intended to be
+excessively amiable in speaking to you thus."
+
+"And so you are, Miss Percival."
+
+"So much the better if I have been so fortunate as to make myself
+understood. Good-by, Monsieur Jean--till tomorrow!"
+
+Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival returned slowly toward the castle.
+
+"And now, Susie," said Bettina, "scold me well, I expect it, I have
+deserved it."
+
+"Scold you! Why?"
+
+"You are going to say, I am sure, that I have been too familiar with
+that young man."
+
+"No, I shall not say that. From the first day that young man has made
+the most favorable impression upon me; he inspires me with perfect
+confidence."
+
+"And so he does me."
+
+"I am persuaded that it would be well for us both to try to make a
+friend of him."
+
+"With all my heart, as far as I am concerned, so much the more as I
+have seen many young men since we have lived in France. Oh! yes, I have,
+indeed! Well! this is the first, positively the first, in whose eyes I
+have not clearly read, 'Oh, how glad I should be to marry the millions
+of that little person!' That was written in the eyes of all the others,
+but not in his eyes. Now, here we are at home again. Good-night,
+Susie--to-morrow."
+
+Mrs. Scott went to see and kiss her sleeping children.
+
+Bettina remained long, leaning on the balustrade of her balcony.
+
+"It seems to me," said she, "that I am going to be very fond of this
+place."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 3.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. CONFIDENCES
+
+The next morning, on returning from drill, Jean found Paul de Lavardens
+waiting for him at the barracks; he scarcely allowed him time to
+dismount, and the moment he had him alone:
+
+"Quick," said he, "describe your dinner-party of yesterday. I saw them
+myself in the morning; the little one was driving four ponies, and with
+an amount of audacity! I bowed to them; did they mention me? Did they
+recognize me? When will you take me to Longueval? Answer me."
+
+"Answer? Yes. But which question first?"
+
+"The last."
+
+"When shall I take you to Longueval?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, in ten days; they don't want to see any one just now."
+
+"Then you are not going back to Longueval for ten days?"
+
+"Oh, I shall go back to-day at four o'clock. But I don't count, you
+know. Jean Reynaud, the Cure's godson. That is why I have penetrated so
+easily into the confidence of these two charming women. I have presented
+myself under the patronage and with the guarantee of the Church. And
+then they have discovered that I could render them little services. I
+know the country very well, and they will make use of me as a guide.
+In a word, I am nobody; while you, Count Paul de Lavardens, you are
+somebody; so fear nothing, your turn will come with the fetes and balls.
+Then you will be resplendent in all your glory, and I shall return very
+humbly into my obscurity."
+
+"You may laugh at me as much as you like; it is none the less true that
+during those ten days you will steal a march upon me--upon me!"
+
+"How upon you?"
+
+"Now, Jean, do you want to make me believe that you are not already in
+love with one of these two women? Is it possible? So much beauty, so
+much luxury. Luxury to that degree upsets me. Those black ponies
+with their white rosettes! I dreamed of them last night, and that
+little-Bettina, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, Bettina."
+
+"Bettina--Countess Bettina de Lavardens! Doesn't that sound well enough!
+and what a perfect husband she would have in me! To be the husband of a
+woman possessing boundless wealth, that is my destiny. It is not so easy
+as one may suppose. I have already run through something, and--if my
+mother had not stopped me! but I am quite ready to begin again. Oh,
+how happy that girl would be with me! I would create around her the
+existence of a fairy queen. In all her luxury she would feel the taste,
+the art, and the skill of her husband. I would pass my life in adoring
+her, in displaying her beauty, in petting her, in bearing her triumphant
+through the world. I would study her beauty in order to give it the
+frame that best suited it. 'If he were not there,' she would say, 'I
+should not be so beautiful, so dazzling.' I should know not only how to
+love her, but how to amuse her. She would have something for her money,
+she would have love and pleasure. Come, Jean, do a good action, take me
+to Mrs. Scott's to-day."
+
+"I cannot, I assure you."
+
+"Well, then, in ten days; but I give you fair notice, I shall install
+myself at Longueval, and shall not move. In the first place it
+would please my mother; she is still a little prejudiced against the
+Americans. She says that she shall arrange not to see them, but I know
+my mother. Some day, when I shall go home in the evening and tell
+her: 'Mother, I have won the-heart of a charming little person who is
+burdened with a capital of twenty millions--they exaggerate when they
+talk of hundreds of millions. You know these are the correct figures,
+and they are enough for me. That evening, then, my mother will be
+delighted, because, in her heart, what is it she desires for me? What
+all good mothers desire for their sons--a good marriage, or a discreet
+liaison with some one in society. At Longueval I find these two
+essentials, and I will accommodate myself very willingly to either.
+You will have the kindness to warn me in ten days--you will let me know
+which of the two you abandon to me, Mrs. Scott or Miss Percival?"
+
+"You are mad, you are quite mad! I do not, I never shall think--"
+
+"Listen, Jean. You are wisdom personified; you may say and do as you
+like, but remember what I say to you, Jean, you will fall in love in
+that house."
+
+"I do not believe it," replied Jean, laughing.
+
+"But I am absolutely sure of it. Good-by. I leave you to your duties."
+
+That morning Jean was perfectly sincere. He had slept very well the
+previous night; the second interview with the two sisters had, as if by
+enchantment, dissipated the slight trouble which had agitated his
+soul after the first meeting. He prepared to meet them again with much
+pleasure, but also with much tranquillity; there was too much money in
+that house to permit the love of a poor devil like Jean to find place
+honestly there.
+
+Friendship was another affair; with all his heart he wished, and with
+all his strength he sought, to establish himself peacefully in the
+esteem and regard of the sisters. He would try not to remark too much
+the beauty of Susie and Bettina; he would try not to forget himself
+as he had done the previous evening, in the contemplation of the four
+little feet resting on their footstools. They had said, very frankly,
+very cordially, to him: "You shall be our friend." That was all he
+desired--to be their friend--and that he would be.
+
+During the ten days that followed, all conduced to the success of this
+enterprise. Susie, Bettina, the Cure, and Jean led the same life in the
+closest and most cordial intimacy.
+
+Jean did not seek to analyze his feelings. He felt for these two women
+an equal affection; he was perfectly happy, perfectly tranquil. Then he
+was not in love, for love and tranquillity seldom dwell at peace in the
+same heart.
+
+Jean, however, saw approach, with a little anxiety and sadness, the day
+which would bring to Longueval the Turners, and the Nortons, and the
+whole force of the American colony. The day came too soon.
+
+On Friday, the 24th of June, at four o'clock, Jean arrived at the
+castle. Bettina received him alone, looking quite vexed.
+
+"How annoying it is," said she, "my sister is not well; a little
+headache, nothing of consequence, it will be gone by tomorrow; but I
+dare not ride with you alone. In America I might; but here, it would not
+do, would it?"
+
+"Certainly not," replied Jean.
+
+"I must send you back, and I am so sorry."
+
+"And so am I--I am very sorry to be obliged to go, and to lose this last
+day, which I had hoped to pass with you. However, since it must be, I
+will come tomorrow to inquire after your sister."
+
+"She will see you herself, to-morrow; I repeat it is nothing serious.
+But do not run away in such a hurry, pray; will you not spare me a
+little quarter of an hour's conversation? I want to speak to you; sit
+down there, and now listen to me well. My sister and I had intended
+this evening, after dinner, to blockade you into a little corner of the
+drawing-room, and then she meant to tell you what I am going to try to
+say for us both."
+
+"But I am a little nervous. Do not laugh; it is a very serious matter.
+We wish to thank you for having been, ever since our arrival here, so
+good to us both."
+
+"Oh, Miss Percival, pray, it is I who--"
+
+"Oh, do not interrupt me, you will quite confuse me. I do not know how
+to get through with it. I maintain, besides, that the thanks are due
+from us, not from you. We arrived here two strangers. We have been
+fortunate enough immediately to find friends. Yes, friends. You have
+taken us by the hand, you have led us to our farmers, to our keepers;
+while your godfather took us to his poor--and everywhere you were so
+much beloved that from their confidence in you, they began, on your
+recommendation, to like us a little. You are adored about here; do you
+know that?"
+
+"I was born here--all these good people have known me from my infancy,
+and are grateful to me for what my grandfather and father did for
+them; and then I am of their race, the race of the peasants; my
+great-grandfather was a laborer at Bargecourt, a village two miles from
+here."
+
+"Oh! oh! you appear very proud of that!"
+
+"Neither proud nor ashamed."
+
+"I beg your pardon, you made a little movement of pride. Well, I can
+tell you that my mother's great-grandfather was a farmer in Brittany.
+He went to Canada at the end of the last century, when Canada was still
+French. And you love very much this place where you were born?"
+
+"Very much. Perhaps I shall soon be obliged to leave it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"When I get promotion, I shall have to exchange into another regiment,
+and I shall wander from garrison to garrison; but certainly, when I am
+an old commandant or old colonel, on half-pay, I shall come back, and
+live and die here, in the little house that was my father's."
+
+"Always quite alone?"
+
+"Why quite alone? I certainly hope not."
+
+"You intend to marry?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"You are trying to marry?"
+
+"No; one may think of marrying, but one ought not to try to marry."
+
+"And yet there are people who do try. Come, I can answer for that, and
+you even; people have wished to marry you."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Oh! I know all your little affairs so well; you are what they call a
+good match, and I repeat it, they have wished to marry you."
+
+"Who told you that?"
+
+"Monsieur le Cure."
+
+"Then he was very wrong," said Jean, with a certain sharpness.
+
+"No, no, he was not wrong. If any one has been to blame it is I. I
+soon discovered that your godfather was never so happy as when he was
+speaking of you. So when I was alone with him during our walks, to
+please him I talked of you, and he related your history to me. You are
+well off; you are very well off; from Government you receive every month
+two hundred and thirteen francs and some centimes; am I correct?"
+
+"Yes," said Jean, deciding to bear with a good grace his share in the
+Cure's indiscretions.
+
+"You have eight thousand francs' income?"
+
+"Nearly, not quite."
+
+"Add to that your house, which is worth thirty thousand francs. You are
+in an excellent position, and people have asked your hand."
+
+"Asked my hand! No, no."
+
+"They have, they have, twice, and you have refused two very good
+marriages, two very good fortunes, if you prefer it--it is the same
+thing for so many people. Two hundred thousand francs in the one, three
+hundred thousand in the other case. It appears that these fortunes are
+enormous for the country! Yet you have refused! Tell me why."
+
+"Well, it concerned two charming young girls."
+
+"That is understood. One always says that."
+
+"But whom I scarcely knew. They forced me--for I did resist--they forced
+me to spend two or three evenings with them last winter."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then--I don't quite know how to explain it to you. I did not feel the
+slightest touch of embarrassment, emotion, anxiety, or disturbance--"
+
+"In fact," said Bettina, resolutely, "not the least suspicion of love."
+
+"No, not the least, and I returned quite calmly to my bachelor den, for
+I think it is better not to marry than to marry without love."
+
+"And I think so, too."
+
+She looked at him, he looked at her, and suddenly, to the great surprise
+of both, they found nothing more to say, nothing at all.
+
+At this moment Harry and Bella rushed into the room, with cries of joy.
+
+"Monsieur Jean! Are you there? Come and see our ponies!"
+
+"Ah!" said Bettina, her voice a little uncertain, "Edwards has just
+come back from Paris, and has brought two microscopic ponies for the
+children. Let us go to see them, shall we?"
+
+They went to see the ponies, which were indeed worthy to figure in the
+stables of the King of Lilliput.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. ANOTHER MARTYR TO MILLIONS
+
+Three weeks have glided by; another day and Jean will be obliged to
+leave with his regiment for the artillery practice. He will lead the
+life of a soldier. Ten days' march on the highroad going and returning,
+and ten days in the camp at Cercottes in the forest of Orleans. The
+regiment will return to Souvigny on the 10th of August.
+
+Jean is no longer tranquil; Jean is no longer happy. He sees approach
+with impatience, and at the same time with terror, the moment of his
+departure. With impatience--for he suffers an absolute martyrdom, he
+longs to escape from it; with terror--for to pass twenty days without
+seeing her, without speaking to her, without her in a word--what will
+become of him? Her! It is Bettina; he adores her!
+
+Since when? Since the first day, since that meeting in the month of May
+in the Cure's garden. That is the truth; but Jean struggles against and
+resists that truth. He believes that he has only loved Bettina since the
+day when the two chatted gayly, amicably, in the little drawing-room.
+She was sitting on the blue couch near the widow, and, while talking,
+amused herself with repairing the disorder of the dress of a Japanese
+princess, one of Bella's dolls, which she had left on a chair, and which
+Bettina had mechanically taken up.
+
+Why had the fancy come to Miss Percival to talk to him of those two
+young girls whom he might have married? The question of itself was not
+at all embarrassing to him. He had replied that, if he had not then felt
+any taste for marriage, it was because his interviews with these two
+girls had not caused him any emotion or any agitation. He had smiled in
+speaking thus, but a few minutes after he smiled no more. This emotion,
+this agitation, he had suddenly learned to know them. Jean did not
+deceive himself; he acknowledged the depth of the wound; it had
+penetrated to his very heart's core.
+
+Jean, however, did not abandon himself to this emotion. He said to
+himself:
+
+"Yes, it is serious, very serious, but I shall recover from it."
+
+He sought an excuse for his madness; he laid the blame on circumstances.
+For ten days this delightful girl had been too much with him, too
+much with him alone! How could he resist such a temptation? He was
+intoxicated with her charm, with her grace and beauty. But the next day
+a troop of visitors would arrive at Longueval, and there would be an end
+of this dangerous intimacy. He would have courage; he would keep at a
+distance; he would lose himself in the crowd, would see Bettina less
+often and less familiarly. To see her no more was a thought he could not
+support! He wished to remain Bettina's friend, since he could be nothing
+but her friend; for there was another thought which scarcely entered
+the mind of Jean. This thought did not appear extravagant to him; it
+appeared monstrous. In the whole world there was not a more honorable
+man than Jean, and he felt for Bettina's money horror, positively
+horror.
+
+From the 25th of June the crowd had been in possession of Longueval.
+Mrs. Norton arrived with her son, Daniel Norton; and Mrs. Turner with
+her son, Philip Turner. Both of them, the young Philip and the young
+Daniel, formed a part of the famous brotherhood of the thirty-four. They
+were old friends, Bettina had treated them as such, and had declared to
+them, with perfect frankness, that they were losing their time. However,
+they were not discouraged, and formed the centre of a little court which
+was always very eager and assiduous around Bettina.
+
+Paul de Lavardens had made his appearance on this scene, and had very
+rapidly become everybody's friend. He had received the brilliant and
+complicated education of a young man destined for pleasure. As soon as
+it was a question only of amusement, riding, croquet, lawn-tennis, polo,
+dancing, charades, and theatricals, he was ready for everything. He
+excelled in everything. His superiority was evident, unquestionable.
+Paul became, in a short time, by general consent, the director and
+organizer of the fetes at Longueval.
+
+Bettina had not a moment of hesitation. Jean introduced Paul de
+Lavardens, and the latter had scarcely concluded the customary little
+compliment when Miss Percival, leaning toward her sister, whispered in
+her ear:
+
+"The thirty-fifth!"
+
+However, she received Paul very kindly, so kindly that for several days
+he had the weakness to misunderstand her. He believed that it was his
+personal graces which had obtained for him this very flattering and
+cordial reception. It was a great mistake. Paul de Lavardens had been
+introduced by Jean; he was the friend of Jean. In Bettina's eyes,
+therein lay all his merit.
+
+Mrs. Scott's castle was open house; people were not invited for one
+evening only, but for every evening, and Paul, with enthusiasm, came
+every evening! His dream was at last realized; he had, found Paris at
+Longueval.
+
+But Paul was neither blind nor a fool. No doubt he was, on Miss
+Percival's part, the object of very particular attention and favor. It
+pleased her to talk long, very long, alone with him. But what was the
+eternal, the inexhaustible subject of their conversations? Jean, again
+Jean, and always Jean!
+
+Paul was thoughtless, dissipated, frivolous, but he became in earnest
+when Jean was in question; he knew how to appreciate him, he knew how to
+love him. Nothing to him was sweeter, nothing was easier, than to say of
+the friend of his childhood all the good that he thought of him, and as
+he saw that Bettina listened with great pleasure, Paul gave free rein to
+his eloquence.
+
+Only--and he was quite right--Paul wished one evening to reap the
+benefit of his chivalrous conduct. He had just been talking for a
+quarter of an hour with Bettina. The conversation finished, he went to
+look for Jean at the other end of the drawing-room, and said to him:
+
+"You left the field open to me, and I have made a bold stroke for Miss
+Percival."
+
+"Well, you have no reason to be discontented with the result of the
+enterprise. You are the best friends in the world."
+
+"Yes, certainly, pretty well, but not quite satisfactory. There is
+nothing more amiable or more charming than Miss Percival, and really it
+is very good of me to acknowledge it; for, between ourselves, she
+makes me play an ungrateful and ridiculous role, a role which is quite
+unsuited to my age. I am, you will admit, of the lover's age, and not of
+that of the confidant."
+
+"Of the confidant!"
+
+"Yes, my dear fellow, of the confidant! That is my occupation in this
+house. You were looking at us just now. Oh, I have very good eyes; you
+were looking at us. Well, do you know what we were talking about? Of
+you, my dear fellow, of you, of you again, of nothing but you. And it is
+the same thing every evening; there is no end to the questions:
+
+"'You were brought up together? You took lessons together from the Abbe
+Constantin?'
+
+"'Will he soon be Captain? And then?'
+
+"'Commandant.'
+
+"'And then?'
+
+"'Colonel, etc., etc., etc.'
+
+"Ah! I can tell you, my friend Jean, if you liked, you might dream a
+very delicious dream."
+
+Jean was annoyed, almost angry. Paul was much astonished at this sudden
+attack of irritability.
+
+"What is the matter? Have I said anything--"
+
+"I beg your pardon; I was wrong. But how could you take such an absurd
+idea into your head?"
+
+"Absurd! I don't see it. I have entertained the absurd idea on my own
+account."
+
+"Ah! you--"
+
+"Why 'Ah! you?' If I have had it you may have it; you are better worth
+it than I am."
+
+"Paul, I entreat you!"
+
+Jean's discomfort was evident.
+
+"We will not speak of it again; we will not speak of it again. What
+I wanted to say, in short, is that Miss Percival perhaps thinks I am
+agreeable; but as to considering me seriously, that little person will
+never commit such a folly. I must fall back upon Mrs. Scott, but without
+much confidence. You see, Jean, I shall amuse myself in this house, but
+I shall make nothing out of it."
+
+Paul de Lavardens did fall back upon Mrs. Scott, but the next day was
+surprised to stumble upon Jean, who had taken to placing himself very
+regularly in Mrs. Scott's particular circle, for like Bettina she had
+also her little court. But what Jean sought there was a protection, a
+shelter, a refuge.
+
+The day of that memorable conversation on marriage without love, Bettina
+had also, for the first time, felt suddenly awake in her that necessity
+of loving which sleeps, but not very profoundly, in the hearts of all
+young girls. The sensation had been the same, at the same moment, in
+the soul of Bettina and the soul of Jean. He, terrified, had cast
+it violently from him. She, on the contrary, had yielded, in all the
+simplicity of her perfect innocence, to this flood of emotion and of
+tenderness.
+
+She had waited for love. Could this be love? The man who was to be her
+thought, her life, her soul--could this be he--this Jean? Why not? She
+knew him better than she knew all those who, during the past year,
+had haunted her for her fortune, and in what she knew of him there was
+nothing to discourage the love of a good girl. Far from it!
+
+Both of them did well; both of them were in the way of duty and of
+truth--she, in yielding; he, in resisting; she, in not thinking for a
+moment of the obscurity of Jean; he, in recoiling before her mountain of
+wealth as he would have recoiled before a crime; she, in thinking that
+she had no right to parley with love; he, in thinking he had no right to
+parley with honor.
+
+This is why, in proportion as Bettina showed herself more tender, and
+abandoned herself with more frankness to the first call of love--this is
+why Jean became, day by day, more gloomy and more restless. He was not
+only afraid of loving; he was afraid of being loved.
+
+He ought to have remained away; he should not have come near her. He had
+tried; he could not; the temptation was too strong; it carried him away;
+so he came. She would come to him, her hands extended, a smile on her
+lips, and her heart in her eyes. Everything in her said:
+
+"Let us try to love each other, and if we can love, we will!"
+
+Fear seized him. Those two hands which offered themselves to the
+pressure of his hands, he hardly dared touch them. He tried to escape
+those eyes which, tender and smiling, anxious and curious, tried to
+meet his eyes. He trembled before the necessity of speaking to Bettina,
+before the necessity of listening to her.
+
+It was then that Jean took refuge with Mrs. Scott, and it was then that
+Mrs. Scott gathered those uncertain, agitated, troubled words which were
+not addressed to her, and which she took for herself, nevertheless. It
+would have been difficult not to be mistaken.
+
+For of these still vague and confused sentiments which agitated her,
+Bettina had as yet said nothing. She guarded and caressed the secret of
+her budding love, as a miser guards and caresses the first coins of his
+treasure. The day when she should see clearly into her own heart; the
+day that she should be sure that she loved--ah! she would speak that
+day, and how happy she should be to tell all to Susie!
+
+Mrs. Scott had ended by attributing to herself this melancholy of Jean,
+which, day by day, took a more marked character. She was flattered by
+it--a woman is never displeased at thinking herself beloved--and vexed
+at the same time. She held Jean in great esteem, in great affection;
+but she was greatly distressed at the thought that if he were sad and
+unhappy, it was because of her.
+
+Susie was, besides, conscious of her own innocence. With others she had
+sometimes been coquettish, very coquettish. To torment them a little,
+was that such a great crime? They had nothing to do, they were
+good-for-nothing, it occupied them while it amused her. It helped
+them to pass their time, and it helped her, too. But Susie had not to
+reproach herself for having flirted with Jean. She recognized his merit
+and his superiority; he was worth more than the others, he was a man to
+suffer seriously, and that was what Mrs. Scott did not wish. Already,
+two or three times, she had been on the point of speaking to him very
+seriously, very affectionately, but she had reflected Jean was going
+away for three weeks; on his return, if it were still necessary, she
+would read him a lecture, and would act in such a manner that love
+should not come and foolishly interfere in their friendship.
+
+So Jean was to go the next day. Bettina had insisted that he should
+spend this last day at Longueval, and dine at the house. Jean had
+refused, alleging that he had much to do the night before his departure.
+
+He arrived in the evening, about half-past ten; he came on foot. Several
+times on the way he had been inclined to return.
+
+"If I had courage enough," he said to himself, "I would not see her
+again. I shall leave to-morrow, and return no more to Souvigny while she
+is there. My resolution is taken, and taken forever."
+
+But he continued his way, he would see her again--for the last time.
+
+As soon as he entered the drawing-room, Bettina hastened to him.
+
+"It is you at last! How late you are!"
+
+"I have been very busy."
+
+"And you are going to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"Early?"
+
+"At five in the morning."
+
+"You will go by the road which runs by the wall of the park, and goes
+through the village?"
+
+"Yes, that is the way we shall go."
+
+"Why so early in the morning? I would have gone out on the terrace to
+see you pass, and to wish you good-by."
+
+Bettina detained for a moment Jean's burning hand in hers. He drew it
+mournfully away, with an effort.
+
+"I must go and speak to your sister," said he.
+
+"Directly, she has not seen you, there are a dozen persons round her.
+Come and sit here a little while, near me."
+
+He was obliged to seat himself beside her.
+
+"We are going away, too," said she.
+
+"You!"
+
+"Yes. An hour ago, we received a telegram from my brother-in-law, which
+has caused us great joy. We did not expect him for a month, but he is
+coming back in a fortnight. He will embark the day after to-morrow at
+New York, on board the Labrador. We are going to meet him at Havre.
+We shall also start the day after to-morrow; we are going to take the
+children, it will do them a great deal of good to spend a few days at
+the seaside. How pleased my brother-in-law will be to know you--he knows
+you already, we have spoken of you in all our letters. I am sure you and
+Mr. Scott will get on extremely well together, he is so good. How long
+shall you stay away?"
+
+"Three weeks."
+
+"Three weeks in a camp?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Percival, in the camp of Cercottes."
+
+"In the middle of the forest of Orleans. I made your godfather explain
+all about it to me this morning. Of course I am delighted to go to meet
+my brother-in-law; but at the same time, I am a little sorry to leave
+here, for I should have gone every morning to pay a little visit to
+Monsieur l'Abbe. He would have given me news of you. Perhaps, in about
+ten days, you will write to my sister--a little note of three or four
+lines--it will not take much of your time--just to tell her how you are,
+and that you do not forget us."
+
+"Oh, as to forgetting you, as to losing the remembrance of your extreme
+kindness, your goodness, never, Miss Percival, never!"
+
+His voice trembled, he was afraid of his own emotion, he rose.
+
+"I assure you, Miss Percival, I must go and speak to your sister. She is
+looking at me. She must be astonished."
+
+He crossed the room, Bettina followed him with her eyes.
+
+Mrs. Norton had just placed herself at the piano to play a waltz for the
+young people.
+
+Paul de Lavardens approached Miss Percival.
+
+"Will you do me the honor, Miss Percival?"
+
+"I believe I have just promised this dance to Monsieur Jean," she
+replied.
+
+"Well, if not to him, will you give it to me?"
+
+"That is understood."
+
+Bettina walked toward Jean, who had seated himself near Mrs. Scott.
+
+"I have just told a dreadful story," said she. "Monsieur de Lavardens
+has asked me for this dance, and I replied that I had promised it to
+you. You would like it, wouldn't you?"
+
+To hold her in his arms, to breathe the perfume of her hair--Jean felt
+his courage could not support this ordeal, he dared not accept.
+
+"I regret extremely I can not, I am not well tonight; I persisted in
+coming because I would not leave without wishing you good-by, but dance,
+no, it is impossible!"
+
+Mrs. Norton began the prelude of the waltz.
+
+"Well," said Paul, coming up quite joyful, "who is it to be, he or I?"
+
+"You," she said, sadly, without removing her eyes from Jean.
+
+She was much disturbed, and replied without knowing well what she said.
+She immediately regretted having accepted, she would have liked to stay
+there, near him. But it was too late, Paul took her hand and led her
+away.
+
+Jean rose; he looked at the two, Bettina and Paul, a haze floated before
+his eyes, he suffered cruelly.
+
+"There is only one thing I can do," thought he, "profit by this waltz,
+and go. To-morrow I will write a few lines to Mrs. Scott to excuse
+myself."
+
+He gained the door, he looked no more at Bettina; had he looked, he
+would have stayed.
+
+But Bettina looked at him; and all at once she said to Paul:
+
+"Thank you very much, but I am a little tired, let us stop, please. You
+will excuse me, will you not?"
+
+Paul offered his arm.
+
+"No, thank you," said she.
+
+The door was just closing, Jean was no longer there. Bettina ran across
+the room. Paul remained alone, much surprised, understanding nothing of
+what had passed.
+
+Jean was already at the hall-door, when he heard some one
+call--"Monsieur Jean! Monsieur Jean!"
+
+He stopped and turned. She was near him.
+
+"You are going without wishing me good-by?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, I am very tired."
+
+"Then you must not walk home, the weather is threatening," she extended
+her hand out-of-doors, "it is raining already."
+
+"Come and have a cup of tea in the little drawing-room, and I will tell
+them to drive you home," and turning toward one of the footmen, "tell
+them to send a carriage round directly."
+
+"No, Miss Percival, pray, the open air will revive me. I must walk, let
+me go."
+
+"Go, then, but you have no greatcoat, take something to wrap yourself
+in."
+
+"I shall not be cold--while you with that open dress--I shall go to
+oblige you to go in." And without even offering his hand, he ran quickly
+down the steps.
+
+"If I touch her hand," he thought, "I am lost, my secret will escape
+me."
+
+His secret! He did not know that Bettina read his heart like an open
+book.
+
+When Jean had descended the steps, he hesitated one short moment, these
+words were upon his lips:
+
+"I love you, I adore you, and that is why I will see you no more!"
+
+But he did not utter these words, he fled away and was soon lost in the
+darkness.
+
+Bettina remained there against the brilliant background made by the
+light from the hall. Great drops of rain, driven by the wind, swept
+across her bare shoulders and made her shiver; she took no notice, she
+distinctly heard her heart beat.
+
+"I knew very well that he loved me," she thought, "but now I am very
+sure, that I, too--oh! yes! I, too!--"
+
+All at once, in one of the great mirrors in the hall door, she saw the
+reflection of the two footmen who stood there motionless, near the oak
+table in the hall. Bettina heard bursts of laughter and the strains of
+the waltz; she stopped. She wished to be alone, completely alone, and
+addressing one of the servants, she said:
+
+"Go and tell your mistress that I am very tired, and have gone to my own
+room."
+
+Annie, her maid, had fallen asleep, in an easy-chair. She sent her away.
+She would undress herself. She let herself sink on a couch, she was
+oppressed with delicious emotion.
+
+The door of her room opened, it was Mrs. Scott.
+
+"You are not well, Bettina?"
+
+"Oh, Susie, is it you, my Susie? how nice of you to come. Sit here,
+close to me, quite close to me."
+
+She hid herself like a child in the arms of her sister, caressing with
+her burning brow Susie's fresh shoulders. Then she suddenly burst into
+sobs, great sobs, which stifled, suffocated her.
+
+"Bettina, my darling, what is the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing! it is nothing, it is joy--joy!"
+
+"Joy?"
+
+"Yes, yes, wait--let me cry a little, it will do me so much good. But do
+not be frightened, do not be frightened."
+
+Beneath her sister's caress, Bettina grew calm, soothed.
+
+"It is over, I am better now, and I can talk to you. It is about Jean."
+
+"Jean! You call him Jean?"
+
+"Yes, I call him Jean. Have you not noticed for some time that he was
+dull and looked quite melancholy?"
+
+"Yes, I have."
+
+"When he came, he went and posted himself near you, and stayed there,
+silent, absorbed to such a degree, that for several days I asked
+myself--pardon me for speaking to you with such frankness, it is my way,
+you know--I asked myself if it were not you whom he loved, Susie; you
+are so charming, it would have been so natural! But no, it was not you,
+it was I!"
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, I. Listen, he scarcely dared to look at me, he avoided me, he fled
+from me, he was afraid of me, evidently afraid. Now, in justice, am I a
+person to inspire fear? I am sure I am not!"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"Ah! it was not I of whom he was afraid, it was my money, my horrid
+money! This money which attracts all the others and tempts them so much,
+this money terrifies him, drives him desperate, because he is not like
+the others, because he--"
+
+"My child, take care, perhaps you are mistaken."
+
+"Oh, no, I am not mistaken! Just now, at the door, when he was going
+away, he said some words to me. These words were nothing. But if you had
+seen his distress in spite of all his efforts to control it! Susie, dear
+Susie, by the affection which I bear you, and God knows how great is
+that affection, this is my conviction, my absolute conviction--if,
+instead of being Miss Percival, I had been a poor little girl without a
+penny Jean would then have taken my hand, and have told me that he loved
+me, and if he had spoken to me thus, do you know what I should have
+replied?"
+
+"That you loved him, too?"
+
+"Yes; and that is why I am so happy. With me it is a fixed idea that
+I must adore the man who will be my husband. Well! I don't say that I
+adore Jean, no, not yet; but still it is beginning, Susie, and it is
+beginning so sweetly."
+
+"Bettina, it really makes me uneasy to see you in this state of
+excitement. I do not deny that Monsieur Reynaud is much attached to
+you--"
+
+"Oh, more than that, more than that!"
+
+"Loves you, if you like; yes, you are right, you are quite right. He
+loves you; and are you not worthy, my darling, of all the love that one
+can bear you? As to Jean--it is progressing decidedly, here am I also
+calling him Jean--well! you know what I think of him. I rank him very,
+very high. But in spite of that, is he really a suitable husband for
+you?"
+
+"Yes, if I love him."
+
+"I am trying to talk sensibly to you, and you, on the
+contrary--Understand me, Bettina; I have an experience of the world
+which you can not have. Since our arrival in Paris, we have been
+launched into a very brilliant, very animated, very aristocratic
+society. You might have been already, if you had liked, marchioness or
+princess."
+
+"Yes, but I did not like."
+
+"It would not matter to you to be called Madame Reynaud?"
+
+"Not in the least, if I love him."
+
+"Ah! you return always to--"
+
+"Because that is the true question. There is no other. Now I will be
+sensible in my turn. This question--I grant that this is not quite
+settled, and that I have, perhaps, allowed myself to be too easily
+persuaded. You see how sensible I am. Jean is going away to-morrow,
+I shall not see him again for three weeks. During these three weeks I
+shall have ample time to question myself, to examine myself, in a word,
+to know my own mind. Under my giddy manner, I am serious and thoughtful,
+you know that?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know it."
+
+"Well, I will make this petition to you, as I would have addressed it to
+our mother had she been here. If, in three weeks, I say to you, 'Susie,
+I am certain that I love him,' will you allow me to go to him, myself,
+quite alone, and ask him if he will have me for his wife? That is what
+you did with Richard. Tell me, Susie, will you allow me?"
+
+"Yes, I will allow you."
+
+Bettina embraced her sister, and murmured these words in her ear:
+
+"Thank you, mamma."
+
+"Mamma, mamma! It was thus that you used to call me when you were a
+child, when we were alone in the world together, when I used to undress
+you in our poor room in New York, when I held you in my arms, when I
+laid you in your little bed, when I sang you to sleep. And since then,
+Bettina, I have had only one desire in the world, your happiness. That
+is why I beg you to reflect well. Do not answer me, do not let us talk
+any more of that. I wish to leave you very calm, very tranquil. You
+have sent away Annie, would you like me to be your little mamma again
+tonight, to undress you, and put you to bed as I used to do?"
+
+"Yes, I should like it very much."
+
+"And when you are in bed, you promise me to be very good?"
+
+"As good as an angel."
+
+"You will do your best to go to sleep?"
+
+"My very best."
+
+"Very quietly, without thinking of anything?"
+
+"Very quietly, without thinking of anything."
+
+"Very well, then."
+
+Ten minutes after, Bettina's pretty head rested gently amid embroideries
+and lace. Susie said to her sister:
+
+"I am going down to those people who bore me dreadfully this evening.
+Before going to my own room, I shall come back and see if you are
+asleep. Do not speak. Go to sleep."
+
+She went away. Bettina remained alone; she tried to keep her word; she
+endeavored to go to sleep, but only half-succeeded. She fell into a
+half-slumber which left her floating between dream and reality. She had
+promised to think of nothing, and yet she thought of him, always of him,
+of nothing but him, vaguely, confusedly.
+
+How long a time passed thus she could not tell.
+
+All at once it seemed to her that some one was walking in her room; she
+half-opened her eyes, and thought she recognized her sister. In a very
+sleepy voice she said to her:
+
+"You know I love him."
+
+"Hush! go to sleep."
+
+"I am asleep! I am asleep!"
+
+At last she did fall sound asleep, less profoundly, however, than usual,
+for about four o'clock in the morning she was suddenly awakened by a
+noise, which, the night before, would not have disturbed her slumber.
+The rain fell in torrents, and beat against her window.
+
+"Oh, it is raining!" she thought. "He will get wet."
+
+That was her first thought. She rose, crossed the room barefooted,
+half-opened the shutters. The day had broke, gray and lowering; the
+clouds were heavy with rain, the wind blew tempestuously, and drove the
+rain in gusts before it.
+
+Bettina did not go back to bed, she felt it would be quite impossible to
+sleep again. She put on a dressing-gown, and remained at the window; she
+watched the falling rain. Since he positively must go, she would have
+liked the weather to be fine; she would have liked bright sunshine to
+have cheered his first day's march.
+
+When she came to Longueval a month ago, Bettina did not know what this
+meant. But she knew it now. A day's march for the artillery is twenty
+or thirty miles, with an hour's halt for luncheon. It was the Abbe
+Constantin who had taught her that; when going their rounds in the
+morning among the poor, Bettina overwhelmed the Cure with questions on
+military affairs, and particularly on the artillery.
+
+Twenty or thirty miles under this pouring rain! Poor Jean! Bettina
+thought of young Turner, young Norton, of Paul de Lavardens, who would
+sleep calmly till ten in the morning, while Jean was exposed to this
+deluge.
+
+Paul de Lavardens!
+
+This name awoke in her a painful memory, the memory of that waltz the
+evening before. To have danced like that, while Jean was so obviously in
+trouble! That waltz took the proportions of a crime in her eyes; it was
+a horrible thing that she had done.
+
+And then, had she not been wanting in courage and frankness in that last
+interview with Jean? He neither could nor dared say anything; but she
+might have shown more tenderness, more expansiveness. Sad and suffering
+as he was, she should never have allowed him to go back on foot. She
+ought to have detained him at any price. Her imagination tormented and
+excited her; Jean must have carried away with him the impression
+that she was a bad little creature, heartless and pitiless. And in
+half-an-hour he was going away, away for three weeks. Ah! if she could
+by any means--but there is a way! The regiment must pass along the wall
+of the park, under the terrace.
+
+Bettina was seized with a wild desire to see Jean pass; he would
+understand well, if he saw her at such an hour, that she had come to beg
+his pardon for her cruelty of the previous evening. Yes, she would go!
+But she had promised to Susie to be as good as an angel, and to do what
+she was going to do, was that being as good as an angel? She would make
+up for it by acknowledging all to Susie when she came in again, and
+Susie would forgive her.
+
+She would go! She had made up her mind. Only how should she dress
+herself? She had nothing at hand but a muslin dressing-gown, little
+high-heeled slippers, and blue satin shoes. She might wake her maid. Oh,
+never would she dare to do that, and time pressed; a quarter to five!
+the regiment would start at five o'clock.
+
+She might, perhaps, manage with the muslin dressing-gown, and the satin
+shoes; in the hall, she might find her hat, her little sabots which
+she wore in the garden, and the large tartan cloak for driving in wet
+weather. She half-opened her door with infinite precautions. Everything
+slept in the house; she crept along the corridor, she descended the
+staircase.
+
+If only the little sabots are there in their place; that is her great
+anxiety. There they are! She slips them on over her satin shoes, she
+wraps herself in her great mantle.
+
+She hears that the rain has redoubled in violence. She notices one of
+those large umbrellas which the footmen use on the box in wet weather;
+she seizes it; she is ready; but when she is ready to go, she sees that
+the hall-door is fastened by a great iron bar. She tries to raise it;
+but the bolt holds fast, resists all her efforts, and the great clock in
+the hall slowly strikes five. He is starting at that moment.
+
+She will see him! she will see him! Her will is excited by these
+obstacles. She makes a great effort; the bar yields, slips back in the
+groove. But Bettina has made a long scratch on her hand, from which
+issues a slender stream of blood. Bettina twists her handkerchief round
+her hand, takes her great umbrella, turns the key in the lock; and opens
+the door.
+
+At last she is out of the house!
+
+The weather is frightful. The wind and the rain rage together. It takes
+five or six minutes to reach the terrace which looks over the road.
+Bettina darts forward courageously; her head bent, hidden under her
+immense umbrella, she has taken a few steps. All at once, furious, mad,
+blinding, a sudden squall bursts upon Bettina, buries her in her mantle,
+drives her along, lifts her almost from the ground, turns the umbrella
+violently inside out; that is nothing, the disaster is not yet complete.
+
+Bettina has lost one of her little sabots; they were not practical
+sabots; they were only pretty little things for fine weather, and at
+this moment, when Bettina struggles against the tempest with her blue
+satin shoe half buried in the wet gravel, at this moment the wind bears
+to her the distant echo of a blast of trumpets. It is the regiment
+starting!
+
+Bettina makes a desperate effort, abandons her umbrella, finds her
+little sabot, fastens it on as well as she can, and starts off running,
+with a deluge descending on her head.
+
+At last, she is in the wood, the trees protect her a little. Another
+blast, nearer this time. Bettina fancies she hears the rolling of the
+gun-carriages. She makes a last effort, there is the terrace, she is
+there just in time.
+
+Twenty yards off she perceived the white horses of the trumpeters, and
+along the road caught glimpses, vaguely appearing through the fog, of
+the long line of guns and wagons.
+
+She sheltered herself under one of the old limes which bordered the
+terrace. She watched, she waited. He is there among that confused mass
+of riders. Will she be able to recognize him? And he, will he see her?
+Will any chance make him turn his head that way?
+
+Bettina knows that he is Lieutenant in the second battery of his
+regiment; she knows that a battery is composed of six guns, and six
+ammunition wagons. Of course it is the Abbe Constantin who has taught
+her that. Thus she must allow the first battery to pass, that is to say,
+count six guns, six wagons, and then--he will be there.
+
+There he is at last, wrapped in his great cloak, and it is he who sees,
+who recognizes her first. A few moments before, he had recalled to his
+mind a long walk which he had taken with her one evening, when night was
+falling, on that terrace. He raised his eyes, and the very spot where
+he remembered having seen her, was the spot where he found her again. He
+bowed, and, bareheaded in the rain, turning round in his saddle, as long
+as he could see her, he looked at her. He said again to himself what he
+had said the previous evening:
+
+"It is for the last time."
+
+With a charming gesture of both hands, she returned his farewell, and
+this gesture, repeated many times, brought her hands so near, so near
+her lips, that one might have fancied--
+
+"Ah!" she thought, "if, after that, he does not understand that I love
+him, and does not forgive me my money!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE REWARD OF TENDER COURAGE
+
+It was the 20th of August, the day which should bring Jean back to
+Longueval.
+
+Bettina awoke very early, rose, and ran immediately to the window.
+The evening before, the sky had looked threatening, heavy with clouds.
+Bettina slept but little, and all night prayed that it might not rain
+the next day.
+
+In the early morning a dense fog enveloped the park of Longueval, the
+trees of which were hidden from view, as by a curtain. But gradually
+the rays of the sun dissipated the mist, the trees became vaguely
+discernible through the vapor; then, suddenly, the sun shone
+brilliantly, flooding with light the park, and the fields beyond;
+and the lake, where the black swans were disporting themselves in the
+radiant light, appeared as bright as a sheet of polished metal.
+
+The weather was going to be beautiful. Bettina was a little
+superstitious. The sunshine gives her good hope and good courage. "The
+day begins well, so it will finish well."
+
+Mr. Scott had come home several days before. Susie, Betting, and the
+children waited on the quay at Havre for the arrival of his steamer.
+
+They exchanged many tender embraces; then, Richard, addressing his
+sister-in-law, said, laughingly:
+
+"Well, when is the wedding to be?"
+
+"What wedding?"
+
+"Yours."
+
+"My wedding?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"And to whom am I about to be married?"
+
+"To Monsieur Jean Reynaud."
+
+"Ah! Susie has written to you?"
+
+"Susie? Not at all. Susie has not said a word. It is you, Bettina, who
+have written to me. For the last two months, all your letters have been
+occupied with this young officer."
+
+"All my letters?"
+
+"Yes, and you have written to me oftener and more at length than usual.
+I do not complain of that, but I do ask when you are going to present me
+with a brother-in-law?"
+
+He spoke jestingly, but Bettina replied:
+
+"Soon, I hope."
+
+Mr. Scott perceived that the affair was serious. When returning in the
+carriage, Bettina asked Mr. Scott if he had kept her letters.
+
+"Certainly," he replied.
+
+She read them again. It was indeed only with "Jean" that all these
+letters have been filled. She found therein related, down to the most
+trifling details, their first meeting. There was the portrait of Jean
+in the vicarage garden, with his straw hat and his earthenware
+salad-dish--and then it was again Monsieur Jean, always Monsieur
+Jean. She discovered that she had loved him much longer than she had
+suspected. At last it was the 10th of August. Luncheon was just over,
+and Harry and Bella were impatient. They knew that between one and
+two o'clock the regiment must pass through the village. They had been
+promised that they should be taken to see the soldiers pass, and for
+them, as well as for Bettina, the return of the 9th Artillery was a
+great event.
+
+"Aunt Betty," said Bella, "Aunt Betty, come with us."
+
+"Yes, do come," said Harry, "do come, we shall see our friend Jean, on
+his big gray horse."
+
+Bettina resisted, refused--and yet how great was the temptation. But no,
+she would not go, she would not see Jean again till the evening, when
+she would give him that decisive explanation for which she had been
+preparing herself for the last three weeks. The children went away with
+their governesses. Bettina, Susie, and Richard went to sit in the park,
+quite close to the castle, and as soon as they were established there:
+
+"Susie," said Bettina, "I am going to remind you today of your promise;
+you remember what passed between us the night of his departure; we
+settled that if, on the day of his return, I could say to you, 'Susie,
+I am sure that I love him,' we settled that you would allow me to speak
+frankly to him, and ask him if he would have me for his wife."
+
+"Yes, I did promise you. But are you very sure?"
+
+"Absolutely--and now the time has come to redeem your promise. I warn
+you that I intend to bring him to this very place," she added, smiling,
+"to this seat; and to use almost the same language to him that you
+formerly used to Richard. You were successful, Susie, you are perfectly
+happy, and I--that is what I wish to be."
+
+"Richard, Susie has told you about Monsieur Reynaud."
+
+"Yes, and she has told me that there is no man of whom she has a higher
+opinion, but--"
+
+"But she has told you that for me it would be a rather quiet, rather
+commonplace marriage. Oh, naughty sister! Will you believe it, Richard,
+that I can not get this fear out of her head? She does not understand
+that, before everything, I wish to love and be loved; will you believe
+it, Richard, that only last week she laid a horrible trap for me? You
+know that there exists a certain Prince Romanelli."
+
+"Yes, I know you might have been a princess."
+
+"That would not have been immensely difficult, I believe. Well, one day
+I was so foolish as to say to Susie, that, in extremity, I might accept
+the Prince Romanelli. Now, just imagine what she did. The Turners were
+at Trouville, Susie had arranged a little plot. We lunched with the
+Prince, but the result was disastrous. Accept him! The two hours that I
+passed with him, I passed in asking myself how I could have said such
+a thing. No, Richard; no, Susie; I will be neither princess, nor
+marchioness, nor countess. My wish is to be Madame Jean Reynaud; if,
+however, Monsieur Jean Reynaud will agree to it, and that is by no means
+certain."
+
+The regiment entered the village, and suddenly military music burst
+martial and joyous across the space. All three remained silent, it was
+the regiment, it was Jean who passed; the sound became fainter, died
+away, and Bettina continued:
+
+"No, that is not certain. He loves me, however, and much, but without
+knowing well what I am; I think that I deserve to be loved differently;
+I think that I should not cause him so much terror, so much fear, if he
+knew me better, and that is why I ask you to permit me to speak to him
+this evening freely, from my heart."
+
+"We will allow you," replied Richard, "you shall speak to him freely,
+for we know, both of us, Bettina, that you will never do anything that
+is not noble and generous."
+
+"At least, I shall try."
+
+The children ran up to them; they had seen Jean, he was quite white with
+dust, he said good-morning to them.
+
+"Only," added Bella, "he is not very nice, he did not stop to talk to
+us; usually he stops, but this time he wouldn't."
+
+"Yes, he would," replied Harry, "for at first he seemed as if he were
+going to--and then he would not, he went away."
+
+"Well, he didn't stop, and it is so nice to talk to a soldier,
+especially when he is on horseback."
+
+"It is not that only, it is that we are very fond of Monsieur Jean; if
+you knew, papa, how kind he is, and how nicely he plays with us."
+
+"And what beautiful drawings he makes. Harry, you remember that great
+Punch who was so funny, with his stick, you know?"
+
+"And the dog, there was the little dog, too, as in the show."
+
+The two children went away talking of their friend Jean.
+
+"Decidedly," said Mr. Scott, "every one likes him in this house."
+
+"And you will be like every one else when you know him," replied
+Bettina.
+
+The regiment broke into a trot along the highroad, after leaving the
+village. There was the terrace where Bettina had been the other morning.
+Jean said to himself:
+
+"Supposing she should be there."
+
+He dreaded and hoped it at the same time. He raised his head, he looked,
+she was not there.
+
+He had not seen her again, he would not see her again, for a long-time
+at least. He would start that very evening at six o'clock for Paris; one
+of the personages in the War Office was interested in him; he would try
+to get exchanged into another regiment.
+
+Alone at Cercottes, Jean had had time to reflect deeply, and that was
+the result of his reflections. He could not, he must not, be Bettina
+Percival's husband.
+
+The men dismounted at the barracks, Jean took leave of his Colonel, his
+comrades; all was over. He was free, he could go.
+
+But he did not go; he looked around him. How happy he was three months
+ago, when he rode out of that great yard amid the noise of the cannon
+rolling over the pavement of Souvigny; but how sadly he should ride away
+to-day! Formerly his life was there; where would it be hereafter?
+
+He returned, went to his own room, and wrote to Mrs. Scott; he told her
+that his duties obliged him to leave immediately, he could not dine
+at the castle, and begged Mrs. Scott to remember him to Miss Bettina.
+Bettina, ah! what trouble it cost him to write that name. He closed his
+letter; he would send it directly.
+
+He made his preparations for departure; then he went to wish his
+godfather farewell. That is what cost him most; he must speak to him
+only of a short absence.
+
+He opened one of the drawers of his bureau to take out some money. The
+first thing that met his eyes was a little note on bluish paper; it was
+the only note which he had ever received from her.
+
+"Will you have the kindness to give to the servant the book of which you
+spoke yesterday evening. Perhaps it will be a little serious for me, but
+yet I should like to try to read it. We shall see you to-night; come as
+early as possible." It was signed "Bettina."
+
+Jean read and re-read these few lines, but soon he could read them no
+longer, his eyes were dim.
+
+"It is all that is left me of her," he thought.
+
+At the same moment the Abbe Constantin was tete-a-tete with old
+Pauline, they were making up their accounts. The financial situation was
+admirable; more than 2,000 francs in hand! And the wishes of Susie and
+Bettina were accomplished, there were no more poor in the neighborhood.
+His old servant, Pauline, had even occasional scruples of conscience.
+
+"You see, Monsieur le Cure," said she, "perhaps we give them a little
+too much. Then it will be spread about in other parishes that here they
+can always find charity. And do you know what will happen then, one of
+these days? Poor people will come and settle in Longueval."
+
+The Cure gave fifty francs to Pauline. She went to take them to a poor
+man who had broken his arm a few days before, by falling from the top of
+a hay-cart.
+
+The Abbe Constantin remained alone in the vicarage. He was rather
+anxious. He had watched for the passing of the regiment; but Jean only
+stopped for a moment, he looked sad. For some time, the Abbe had noticed
+that Jean had no longer the flow of good-humor and gayety he once
+possessed.
+
+The Cure did not disturb himself too much about it, believing it to be
+one of those little youthful troubles which did not concern a poor old
+priest. But, on this occasion, Jean's disturbance was very perceptible.
+
+"I will come back directly," he said to the Cure, "I want to speak to
+you."
+
+He turned abruptly away. The Abbe Constantin had not even had time to
+give Loulou his piece of sugar, or rather his pieces of sugar, for he
+had put five or six in his pocket, considering that Loulou had well
+deserved this feast by ten long days' march, and a score of nights
+passed under the open sky.
+
+Besides, since Mrs. Scott had lived at Longueval, Loulou had very often
+had several pieces of sugar; the Abbe Constantin had become extravagant,
+prodigal; he felt himself a millionaire, the sugar for Loulou was one
+of his follies. One day, even, he had been on the point of addressing to
+Loulou his everlasting little speech:
+
+"This comes from the new mistresses of Longueval; pray for them
+to-night."
+
+It was three o'clock when Jean arrived at the vicarage, and the Cure
+said, immediately:
+
+"You told me that you wanted to speak to me; what is it about?"
+
+"About something, my dear godfather, which will surprise you, will
+grieve you--"
+
+"Grieve me!"
+
+"Yes, and which grieves me, too--I have come to bid you farewell."
+
+"Farewell! you are going away?"
+
+"Yes, I am going away."
+
+"When?"
+
+"To-day, in two hours."
+
+"In two hours? But, my dear boy, you were going to dine at the castle
+to-night."
+
+"I have just written to Mrs. Scott to excuse me. I am positively obliged
+to go."
+
+"Directly?"
+
+"Directly."
+
+"And where are you going?"
+
+"To Paris."
+
+"To Paris! Why this sudden determination?"
+
+"Not so very sudden! I have thought about it for a long time."
+
+"And you have said nothing about it to me! Jean, something has happened.
+You are a man, and I have no longer the right to treat you as a child;
+but you know how much I love you; if you have vexations, troubles, why
+not tell them to me? I could perhaps advise you. Jean, why go to Paris?"
+
+"I did not wish to tell you, it will give you pain; but you have the
+right to know. I am going to Paris to ask to be exchanged into another
+regiment."
+
+"Into another regiment! To leave Souvigny!"
+
+"Yes, that is just it; I must leave Souvigny for a short time, for a
+little while only; but to leave Souvigny is necessary, it is what I wish
+above all things."
+
+"And what about me, Jean, do you not think of me? A little while! A
+little while! But that is all that remains to me of life, a little
+while. And during these last days, that I owe to the grace of God, it
+was my happiness, yes, Jean, my happiness, to feel you here, near me,
+and now you are going away! Jean, wait a little patiently, it can not be
+for very long now for. Wait until the good God has called me to himself,
+wait till I shall be gone, to meet there, at his side, your father and
+your mother. Do not go, Jean, do not go."
+
+"If you love me, I love you, too, and you know it well."
+
+"Yes, I know it."
+
+"I have just the same affection for you now that I had when I was quite
+little, when you took me to yourself, when you brought me up. My heart
+has not changed, will never change. But if duty--if honor--oblige me to
+go?"
+
+"Ah, if it is duty, if it is honor, I say nothing more, Jean, that
+stands before all!--all!--all! I have always known you a good judge of
+your duty, your honor. Go, my boy, go, I ask you nothing more, I wish to
+know no more."
+
+"But I wish to tell you all," cried Jean, vanquished by his emotion,
+"and it is better that you should know all. You will stay here, you will
+return to the castle, you will see her again--her!"
+
+"See her! Who?"
+
+"Bettina!"
+
+"Bettina?"
+
+"I adore her, I adore her!"
+
+"Oh, my poor boy!"
+
+"Pardon me for speaking to you of these things; but I tell you as I
+would have told my father."
+
+"And then, I have not been able to speak of it to any one, and it
+stifled me; yes, it is a madness which has seized me, which has grown
+upon me, little by little, against my will, for you know very-well--My
+God! It was here that I began to love her. You know, when she came here
+with her sister--with the little 'rouleaux' of francs--her hair fell
+down--and then the evening, the month of Mary! Then I was permitted to
+see her freely, familiarly, and you, yourself, spoke to me constantly of
+her. You praised her sweetness, her goodness. How often have you told me
+that there was no one in the world better than she is!"
+
+"And I thought it, and I think it still. And no one here knows her
+better than I do, for it is I alone who have seen her with the poor. If
+you only knew how tender, and how good she is! Neither wretchedness
+nor suffering repulse her. But, my dear boy, I am wrong to tell you all
+this."
+
+"No, no, I will see her no more, I promise you; but I like to hear you
+speak of her."
+
+"In your whole life, Jean, you will never meet a better woman, nor one
+who has more elevated sentiments. To such a point, that one day--she
+had taken me with her in an open carriage, full of toys--she was taking
+these toys to a poor sick little girl, and when she gave them to her, to
+make the poor little thing laugh, to amuse her, she talked so prettily
+to her that I thought of you, and I said to myself, I remember it now,
+'Ah, if she were poor!'"
+
+"Ah! if she were poor, but she is not."
+
+"Oh, no! But what can you do, my poor child! If it gives you pain to see
+her, to live near her; above all, if it will prevent you suffering--go,
+go--and yet, and yet--"
+
+The old priest became thoughtful, let his head fall between his hands,
+and remained silent for some moments; then he continued:
+
+"And yet, Jean, do you know what I think? I have seen a great deal
+of Mademoiselle Bettina since she came to Longueval. Well--when I
+reflect--it did not astonish me that any one should be interested in
+you, for it seemed so natural--but she talked always, yes, always of
+you."
+
+"Of me?"
+
+"Yes, of you, and of your father and mother; she was curious to know how
+you lived. She begged me to explain to her what a soldier's life was,
+the life of a true soldier, who loved his profession, and performed his
+duties conscientiously."
+
+"It is extraordinary, since you have told me this, recollections crowd
+upon me, a thousand little things collect and group themselves together.
+They returned from Havre yesterday at three o'clock. Well! an hour
+after their arrival she was here. And it was of you of whom she spoke
+directly. She asked if you had written to me, if you had not been ill,
+when you would arrive, at what hour, if the regiment would pass through
+the village?"
+
+"It is useless at this moment, my dear godfather," said Jean, "to recall
+all these memories."
+
+"No, it is not useless. She seemed so pleased, so happy even, that she
+should see you again! She would make quite a fete of the dinner this
+evening. She would introduce you to her brother-in-law, who has come
+back. There is no one else in the house at this moment, not a single
+visitor. She insisted strongly on this point, and I remember her last
+words--she was there, on the threshold of the door:
+
+"'There will be only five of us,' she said, 'you and Monsieur Jean, my
+sister, my brother-in-law, and myself.'
+
+"And then she added, laughing, 'Quite a family party.'
+
+"With these words she went, she almost ran away. Quite a family party!
+Do you know what I think, Jean? Do you know?"
+
+"You must not think that, you must not."
+
+"Jean, I believe that she loves you."
+
+"And I believe it, too."
+
+"You, too!"
+
+"When I left her, three weeks ago, she was so agitated, so moved! She
+saw me sad and unhappy, she would not let me go. It was at the door of
+the castle. I was obliged to tear myself, yes, literally tear myself
+away. I should have spoken, burst out, told her all. After I had gone a
+few steps, I stopped and turned. She could no longer see me, I was lost
+in the darkness; but I could see her. She stood there motionless, her
+shoulders and arms bare, in the rain, her eyes fixed on the way by
+which I had gone. Perhaps I am mad to think that. Perhaps it was only
+a feeling of pity. But no, it was something more than pity, for do you
+know what she did the next morning? She came at five o'clock, in the
+most frightful weather, to see me pass with the regiment--and then--the
+way she bade me adieu--oh, my friend, my dear old friend!"
+
+"But then," said the poor Cure, completely bewildered, completely at a
+loss, "but then, I do not understand you at all. If you love her, Jean,
+and if she loves you?"
+
+"But that is, above all, the reason why I must go. If it were only I, if
+I were certain that she has not perceived my love, certain that she has
+not been touched by it, I would stay, I would stay--for nothing but for
+the sweet joy of seeing her, and I would love her from afar, without
+any hope, for nothing but the happiness of loving her. But no, she has
+understood too well, and far from discouraging me--that is what forces
+me to go."
+
+"No, I do not understand it! I know well, my poor boy, we are speaking
+of things in which I am no great scholar, but you are both good, young,
+and charming; you love her, she would love you, and you will not!"
+
+"And her money! her money!"
+
+"What matters her money? If it is only that, is it because of her
+money that you have loved her? It is rather in spite of her money. Your
+conscience, my son, would be quite at peace with regard to that, and
+that would suffice."
+
+"No, that would not suffice. To have a good opinion of one's self is not
+enough; that opinion must be shared by others."
+
+"Oh, Jean! Among all who know you, who can doubt you?"
+
+"Who knows? And then there is another thing besides this question of
+money, another thing more serious and more grave. I am not the husband
+suited to her."
+
+"And who could be more worthy than you?"
+
+"The question to be considered is not my worth; we have to consider what
+she is and what I am, to ask what ought to be her life, and what ought
+to be my life."
+
+"One day, Paul--you know he has rather a blunt way of saying things, but
+that very bluntness often places thoughts much more distinctly before
+us--Paul was speaking of her; he did not suspect anything; if he had, he
+is good-natured, he would not have spoken thus--well, he said to me:
+
+"'What she needs is a husband who would be entirely devoted to her,
+to her alone, a husband who would have no other care than to make her
+existence a perpetual holiday, a husband who would give himself, his
+whole life, in return for her money.'
+
+"You know me; such a husband I can not, I must not be. I am a soldier,
+and shall remain one. If the chances of my career sent me some day to a
+garrison in the depths of the Alps, or in some almost unknown village in
+Algeria, could I ask her to follow me? Could I condemn her to the life
+of a soldier's wife, which is in some degree the life of a soldier
+himself? Think of the life which she leads now, of all that luxury, of
+all those pleasures!"
+
+"Yes," said the Abbe, "that is more serious than the question of money."
+
+"So serious that there is no hesitation possible. During the three weeks
+that I passed alone in the camp, I have well considered all that; I have
+thought of nothing else, and loving her as I do love, the reason must
+indeed be strong which shows me clearly my duty. I must go, I must go
+far, very far away, as far as possible. I shall suffer much, but I must
+not see her again! I must not see her again!"
+
+Jean sank on a chair near the fireplace. He remained there quite
+overpowered with his emotion. The old priest looked at him.
+
+"To see you suffer, my poor boy! That such suffering should fall upon
+you! It is too cruel, too unjust!"
+
+At that moment some one knocked gently at the door.
+
+"Ah!" said the Cure, "do not be afraid, Jean. I will send them away."
+
+The Abbe went to the door, opened it, and recoiled as if before an
+unexpected apparition.
+
+It was Bettina. In a moment she had seen Jean, and going direct to him:
+
+"You!" cried she. "Oh, how glad I am!"
+
+He rose. She took his hands, and addressing the Cure, she said:
+
+"I beg your pardon, Monsieur le Cure, for going to him first. You, I
+saw yesterday, and him, not for three whole weeks, not since a certain
+night, when he left our house, sad and suffering."
+
+She still held Jean's hands. He had neither power to make a movement nor
+to utter a sound.
+
+"And now," continued Betting, "are you better? No, not yet, I can see,
+still sad. Ah, I have done well to come! It was an inspiration! However,
+it embarrasses me a little, it embarrasses me a great deal, to find you
+here. You will understand why when you know what I have come to ask of
+your godfather."
+
+She relinquished his hands, and turning toward the Abbe, said:
+
+"I have come to beg you to listen to my confession--yes, my confession.
+But do not go away, Monsieur Jean; I will make my confession publicly. I
+am quite willing to speak before you, and now I think of it, it will be
+better thus. Let us sit down, shall we?"
+
+She felt herself full of confidence and daring. She burned with fever,
+but with that fever which, on the field of battle, gives to a soldier
+ardor, heroism, and disdain of danger. The emotion which made Bettina's
+heart beat quicker than usual was a high and generous emotion. She said
+to herself:
+
+"I will be loved! I will love! I will be happy! I will make him happy!
+And since he has not sufficient courage to do it, I must have it for
+both. I must march alone, my head high, and my heart at ease, to the
+conquest of our love, to the conquest of our happiness!"
+
+From her first words Bettina had gained over the Abbe and Jean a
+complete ascendancy. They let her say what she liked, they let her do
+as she liked, they felt that the hour was supreme; they understood that
+what was happening would be decisive, irrevocable, but neither was in a
+position to foresee.
+
+They sat down obediently, almost automatically; they waited, they
+listened. Alone, of the three, Bettina retained her composure. It was in
+a calm and even voice that she began.
+
+"I must tell you first, Monsieur le Cure, to set your conscience quite
+at rest, I must tell you that I am here with the consent of my sister
+and my brother-in-law. They know why I have come; they know what I am
+about to do. They not only know, but they approve. That is settled, is
+it not? Well, what brings me here is your letter, Monsieur Jean, that
+letter in which you tell my sister that you can not dine with us this
+evening, and that you are positively obliged to leave here. This letter
+has unsettled all my plans. I had intended, this evening--of course with
+the permission of my sister and brother-in-law--I had intended, after
+dinner, to take you into the park, to seat myself with you on a bench; I
+was childish enough to choose the place beforehand."
+
+"There I should have delivered a little speech, well prepared, well
+studied, almost learned by heart, for since your departure I have
+scarcely thought of anything else; I repeat it to myself from morning to
+night. That is what I had proposed to do, and you understand that your
+letter caused me much embarrassment. I reflected a little, and thought
+that if I addressed my little speech to your godfather it would be
+almost the same as if I addressed it to you. So I have come, Monsieur le
+Cure, to beg you to listen to me."
+
+"I will listen to you, Miss Percival," stammered the Abbe.
+
+"I am rich, Monsieur le Cure, I am very rich, and to speak frankly I
+love my wealth very much-yes, very much. To it I owe the luxury which
+surrounds me, luxury which, I acknowledge--it is a confession--is by no
+means disagreeable to me. My excuse is that I am still very young; it
+will perhaps pass as I grow older, but of that I am not very sure.
+I have another excuse; it is, that if I love money a little for the
+pleasure that it procures me, I love it still more for the good which
+it allows me to do. I love it--selfishly, if you like--for the joy
+of giving, but I think that my fortune is not very badly placed in my
+hands. Well, Monsieur le Cure, in the same way that you have the care of
+souls, it seems that I have the care of money. I have always thought, 'I
+wish, above all things, that my husband should be worthy of sharing this
+great fortune. I wish to be very sure that he will make a good use of
+it with me while I am here, and after me, if I must leave this world
+first.' I thought of another thing; I thought, 'He who will be my
+husband must be some one I can love!' And now, Monsieur le Cure, this is
+where my confession really begins. There is a man, who for the last two
+months, has done all he can to conceal from me that he loves me; but I
+do not doubt that this man loves me. You do love me, Jean?"
+
+"Yes," said Jean, in a low voice, his eyes cast down, looking like a
+criminal, "I do love you!"
+
+"I knew it very well, but I wanted to hear you say it, and now I entreat
+you, do not utter a single word. Any words of yours would be useless,
+would disturb me, would prevent me from going straight to my aim, and
+telling you what I positively intend to say. Promise me to stay there,
+sitting still, without moving, without speaking. You promise me?"
+
+"I promise you."
+
+Bettina, as she went on speaking, began to lose a little of her
+confidence, her voice trembled slightly. She continued, however, with a
+gayety that was a little forced:
+
+"Monsieur le Cure, I do not blame you for what has happened, yet all
+this is a little your fault."
+
+"My fault!"
+
+"Ah! do not speak, not even you. Yes, I repeat it, your fault. I am
+certain that you have spoken well of me to Jean, much too well. Perhaps,
+without that, he would not have thought--And at the same time you have
+spoken very well of him to me. Not too well--no, no--but yet very well!
+Then, I had so much confidence in you, that I began to look at him, and
+examine, him with a little more attention. I began to compare him with
+those who, during the last year, had asked my hand. It seemed to me that
+he was in every respect superior to them.
+
+"At last, it happened, on a certain day, or rather on a certain
+evening-three weeks ago, the evening before you left here, Jean--I
+discovered that I loved you. Yes, Jean, I love you! I entreat you, do
+not speak; stay where you are; do not come near me.
+
+"Before I came here, I thought I had supplied myself with a good stock
+of courage, but you see I have no longer my fine composure of a minute
+ago. But I have still something to tell you, and the most important of
+all. Jean, listen to me well; I do not wish for a reply torn from your
+emotion; I know that you love me. If you marry me, I do not wish it to
+be only for love; I wish it to be also for reason. During the fortnight
+before you left here, you took so much pains to avoid me, to escape any
+conversation, that I have not been able to show myself to you as I am.
+Perhaps there are in me certain qualities which you do not suspect.
+
+"Jean, I know what you are, I know to what I should bind myself in
+marrying you, and I should be for you not only the loving and tender
+woman, but the courageous and constant wife. I know your entire life;
+your godfather has related it to me. I know why you became a soldier; I
+know what duties, what sacrifices, the future may demand from you. Jean,
+do not suppose that I shall turn you from any of these duties, from any
+of these sacrifices. If I could be disappointed with you for anything,
+it would be, perhaps, for this thought--oh, you must have had it!--that
+I should wish you free, and quite my own, that I should ask you to
+abandon your career. Never! never! Understand well, I shall never ask
+such a thing of you.
+
+"A young girl whom I know did that when she married, and she did wrong.
+I love you, and I wish you to be just what you are. It is because you
+live differently from, and better than, those who have before desired
+me for a wife, that I desire you for a husband. I should love you
+less--perhaps I should not love you at all, though that would be very
+difficult--if you were to begin to live as all those live whom I would
+not have. When I can follow you, I will follow you; wherever you are
+will be my duty, wherever you are will be my happiness. And if the day
+comes when you can not take me, the day when you must go alone, well!
+Jean, on that day, I promise you to be brave, and not take your courage
+from you.
+
+"And now, Monsieur le Cure, it is not to him, it is to you that I am
+speaking; I want you to answer me, not him. Tell me, if he loves me,
+and feels me worthy of his love, would it be just to make me expiate so
+severely the fortune that I possess? Tell me, should he not agree to be
+my husband?"
+
+"Jean," said the old priest, gravely, "marry her. It is your duty, and
+it will be your happiness!"
+
+Jean approached Bettina, took her in his arms, and pressed upon her brow
+the first kiss.
+
+Bettina gently freed herself, and addressing the Abbe, said:
+
+"And now, Monsieur l'Abbe, I have still one thing to ask you. I wish--I
+wish--"
+
+"You wish?"
+
+"Pray, Monsieur le Cure, embrace me, too."
+
+The old priest kissed her paternally on both cheeks, and then Bettina
+continued:
+
+"You have often told me, Monsieur le Cure, that Jean was almost like
+your own son, and I shall be almost like your own daughter, shall I not?
+So you will have two children, that is all."
+
+        ...........................
+
+A month after, on the 12th of September, at mid-day, Bettina, in the
+simplest of wedding-gowns, entered the church of Longueval, while,
+placed behind the altar, the trumpets of the 9th Artillery rang joyously
+through the arches of the old church.
+
+Nancy Turner had begged for the honor of playing the organ on this
+solemn occasion, for the poor little harmonium had disappeared; an
+organ, with resplendent pipes, rose in the gallery of the church--it was
+Miss Percival's wedding present to the Abbe Constantin.
+
+The old Cure said mass, Jean and Bettina knelt before him, he pronounced
+the benediction, and then remained for some moments in prayer, his arms
+extended, calling down, with his whole soul, the blessings of Heaven on
+his two children.
+
+Then floated from the organ the same reverie of Chopin's which Bettina
+had played the first time that she had entered that little village
+church, where was to be consecrated the happiness of her life.
+
+And this time it was Bettina who wept.
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     Ancient pillars of stone, embrowned and gnawed by time
+     And they are shoulders which ought to be seen
+     Believing themselves irresistible
+     But she will give me nothing but money
+     Duty, simply accepted and simply discharged
+     Frenchman has only one real luxury--his revolutions
+     God may have sent him to purgatory just for form's sake
+     Great difference between dearly and very much
+     Had not told all--one never does tell all
+     He led the brilliant and miserable existence of the unoccupied
+     If there is one! (a paradise)
+     In order to make money, the first thing is to have no need of it
+     Love and tranquillity seldom dwell at peace in the same heart
+     Never foolish to spend money. The folly lies in keeping it
+     Often been compared to Eugene Sue, but his touch is lighter
+     One half of his life belonged to the poor
+     One may think of marrying, but one ought not to try to marry
+     Succeeded in wearying him by her importunities and tenderness
+     The women have enough religion for the men
+     The history of good people is often monotonous or painful
+     To learn to obey is the only way of learning to command
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's L'Abbe Constantin, Complete, by Ludovic Halevy
+
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