"I should think so!"he exclaimed."The gossip which gets about is scandalous.No sooner has a girl come out than everyone is keen to marry her,and the ridiculous stories that are invented!I shall never force Armande to marry against her will.I am going to take a turn in the promenade,otherwise people will be saying that I allowed the rumor to spread in order to suggest the marriage to the ambassador;and Caesar's daughter ought to be above suspicion,even more than his wife--if that were possible."The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Mme.d'Espard shot glances first at my mother,then at the Baron,brimming over with sly intelligence and repressed curiosity.With their serpent's cunning they had at last got an inkling of something going on.Of all mysteries in life,love is the least mysterious!It exhales from women,I believe,like a perfume,and she who can conceal it is a very monster!Our eyes prattle even more than our tongues.
Having enjoyed the delightful sensation of finding Felipe rise to the occasion,as I had wished,it was only in nature I should hunger for more.So I made the signal agreed on for telling him that he might come to my window by the dangerous road you know of.A few hours later I found him,upright as a statue,glued to the wall,his hand resting on the balcony of my window,studying the reflections of the light in my room.
"My dear Felipe,"I said,"You have acquitted yourself well to-night;you behaved exactly as I should have done had I been told that you were on the point of marrying.""I thought,"he replied,"that you would hardly have told others before me.""And what right have you to this privilege?"
"The right of one who is your devoted slave.""In very truth?"
"I am,and shall ever remain so."
"But suppose this marriage was inevitable;suppose that I had agreed ..."Two flashing glances lit up the moonlight--one directed to me,the other to the precipice which the wall made for us.He seemed to calculate whether a fall together would mean death;but the thought merely passed like lightning over his face and sparkled in his eyes.Apower,stronger than passion,checked the impulse.
"An Arab cannot take back his word,"he said in a husky voice."I am your slave to do with as you will;my life is not mine to destroy."The hand on the balcony seemed as though its hold were relaxing.Iplaced mine on it as I said:
"Felipe,my beloved,from this moment I am your wife in thought and will.Go in the morning to ask my father for my hand.He wishes to retain my fortune;but if you promise to acknowledge receipt of it in the contract,his consent will no doubt be given.I am no longer Armande de Chaulieu.Leave me at once;no breath of scandal must touch Louise de Macumer."He listened with blanched face and trembling limbs,then,like a flash,had cleared the ten feet to the ground in safety.It was a moment of agony,but he waved his hand to me and disappeared.
"I am loved then,"I said to myself,"as never woman was before."And I fell asleep in the calm content of a child,my destiny for ever fixed.
About two o'clock next day my father summoned me to his private room,where I found the Duchess and Macumer.There was an interchange of civilities.I replied quite simply that if my father and M.Henarez were of one mind,I had no reason to oppose their wishes.Thereupon my mother invited the Baron to dinner;and after dinner,we all four went for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne,where I had the pleasure of smiling ironically to M.de Marsay as he passed on horseback and caught sight of Macumer sitting opposite to us beside my father.
My bewitching Felipe has had his cards reprinted as follows:
HENAREZ
(Baron de Macumer,formerly Duc de Soria.)