LITMIR.BIZ

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said he at length, “another! And your grandmother does not know it. Claire, you can only have chosen a man worthy of your love. How is it the marchioness does not receive him?”

      “There are certain obstacles,” murmured Claire, “obstacles which perhaps we may never be able to remove; but a girl like me can love but once. She marries him she loves, or she belongs to heaven!”

      “Certain obstacles!” said M. Daburon in a hollow voice. “You love a man, he knows it, and he is stopped by obstacles?”

      “I am poor,” answered Mademoiselle d’Arlange, “and his family is immensely rich. His father is cruel, inexorable.”

      “His father,” cried the magistrate, with a bitterness he did not dream of hiding, “his father, his family, and that withholds him! You are poor, he is rich, and that stops him! And yet he knows you love him! Ah! why am I not in his place? and why have I not the entire universe against me? What sacrifice can compare with love? such as I understand it. Nay, would it be a sacrifice? That which appears most so, is it not really an immense joy? To suffer, to struggle, to wait, to hope always, to devote oneself entirely to another; that is my idea of love.”

      “It is thus I love,” said Claire with simplicity.

      This answer crushed the magistrate. He could understand it. He knew that for him there was no hope; but he felt a terrible enjoyment in torturing himself, and proving his misfortune by intense suffering.

      “But,” insisted he, “how have you known him, spoken to him? Where? When? Madame d’Arlange receives no one.”

      “I ought now to tell you everything, sir,” answered Claire proudly. “I have known him for a long time. It was at the house of one of my grandmother’s friends, who is a cousin of his — old Mademoiselle Goello, that I saw him for the first time. There we spoke to each other; there we meet each other now.”

      “Ah!” exclaimed M. Daburon, whose eyes were suddenly opened, “I remember now. A few days before your visit to Mademoiselle Goello, you are gayer than usual; and, when you return, you are often sad.”

      “That is because I see how much he is pained by the obstacles he cannot overcome.”

      “Is his family, then, so illustrious,” asked the magistrate harshly, “that it disdains alliance with yours?”

      “I should have told you everything, without waiting to be questioned, sir,” answered Mademoiselle d’Arlange, “even his name. He is called Albert de Commarin.”

      The marchioness at this moment, thinking she had walked enough, was preparing to return to her rose-coloured boudoir. She therefore approached the arbour, and exclaimed in her loud voice:—

      “Worthy magistrate, piquet awaits you.”

      Mechanically the magistrate arose, stammering, “I am coming.”

      Claire held him back. “I have not asked you to keep my secret, sir,” said she.

      “O mademoiselle!” said M. Daburon, wounded by this appearance of doubt.

      “I know,” resumed Claire, “that I can count upon you; but, come what will, my tranquillity is gone.”

      M. Daburon looked at her with an air of surprise; his eyes questioned her.

      “It is certain,” continued she, “that what I, a young and inexperienced girl, have failed to see, has not passed unnoticed by my grandmother. That she has continued to receive you is a tacit encouragement of your addresses; which I consider, permit me to say, as very honourable to myself.”

      “I have already mentioned, mademoiselle,” replied the magistrate, “that the marchioness has deigned to authorise my hopes.”

      And briefly he related his interview with Madame d’Arlange, having the delicacy, however, to omit absolutely the question of money, which had so strongly influenced the old lady.

      “I see very plainly what effect this will have on my peace,” said Claire sadly. “When my grandmother learns that I have not received your homage, she will be very angry.”

      “You misjudge me, mademoiselle,” interrupted M. Daburon. “I have nothing to say to the marchioness. I will retire, and all will be concluded. No doubt she will think that I have altered my mind!”

      “Oh! you are good and generous, I know!”

      “I will go away,” pursued M. Daburon; “and soon you will have forgotten even the name of the unfortunate whose life’s hopes have just been shattered.”

      “You do not mean what you say,” said the young girl quickly.

      “Well, no. I cherish this last illusion, that later on you will remember me with pleasure. Sometimes you will say, ‘He loved me,’ I wish all the same to remain your friend, yes, your most devoted friend.”

      Claire, in her turn, clasped M. Daburon’s hands, and said with great emotion:—“Yes, you are right, you must remain my friend. Let us forget what has happened, what you have said to-night, and remain to me, as in the past, the best, the most indulgent of brothers.”

      Darkness had come, and she could not see him; but she knew he was weeping, for he was slow to answer.

      “Is it possible,” murmured he at length, “what you ask of me? What! is it you who talk to me of forgetting? Do you feel the power to forget? Do you not see that I love you a thousand times more than you love —” He stopped, unable to pronounce the name of Commarin; and then, with an effort he added: “And I shall love you always.”

      They had left the arbour, and were now standing not far from the steps leading to the house.

      “And now, mademoiselle,” resumed M. Daburon, “permit me to say, adieu! You will see me again but seldom. I shall only return often enough to avoid the appearance of a rupture.”

      His voice trembled, so that it was with difficulty he made it distinct.

      “Whatever may happen,” he added, “remember that there is one unfortunate being in the world who belongs to you absolutely. If ever you have need of a friend’s devotion, come to me, come to your friend. Now it is over . . . I have courage. Claire, mademoiselle, for the last time, adieu!”

      She was but little less moved than he was. Instinctively she approached him, and for the first and last time he touched lightly with his cold lips the forehead of her he loved so well. They mounted the steps, she leaning on his arm, and entered the rose-coloured boudoir where the marchioness was seated, impatiently shuffling the cards, while awaiting her victim.

      “Now, then, incorruptible magistrate,” cried she.

      But M. Daburon felt sick at heart. He could not have held the cards. He stammered some absurd excuses, spoke of pressing affairs, of duties to be attended to, of feeling suddenly unwell, and went out, clinging to the walls.

      His departure made the old card-player highly indignant. She turned to her grand-daughter, who had gone to hide her confusion away from the candles of the card table, and asked, “What is the matter with Daburon this evening?”

      “I do not know, madame,” stammered Claire.

      “It appears to me,” continued the marchioness, “that the little magistrate permits himself to take singular liberties. He must be reminded of his proper place, or he will end by believing himself our equal.”

      Claire tried to explain the magistrate’s conduct: “He has been complaining all the evening, grandmamma; perhaps he is unwell.”

      “And what if he is?” exclaimed the old lady. “Is it not his duty to exercise some self-denial, in return for the honour of our company? I think I have already related to you the story of your granduncle, the Duke de St Hurluge, who, having been chosen to join the king’s card party on their return from the chase, played all through the evening and lost with the best grace in the world two hundred and twenty pistoles. All the assembly remarked his gaiety and his

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