第40章

Armand felt sure of her after that cry.He led the way; the Duchess nobly true to her word, was blind.But while Montriveau held her hand as a father might, and led her up and down flights of stairs, he was studying the throbbing pulses of this woman's heart so suddenly invaded by Love.Mme de Langeais, rejoicing in this power of speech, was glad to let him know all; but he was inflexible; his hand was passive in reply to the questionings of her hand.

At length, after some journey made together, Armand bade her go forward; the opening was doubtless narrow, for as she went she felt that his hand protected her dress.His care touched her; it was a revelation surely that there was a little love still left;yet it was in some sort a farewell, for Montriveau left her without a word.The air was warm; the Duchess, feeling the heat, opened her eyes, and found herself standing by the fire in the Comtesse de Serizy's boudoir.

She was alone.Her first thought was for her disordered toilette; in a moment she had adjusted her dress and restored her picturesque coiffure.

"Well, dear Antoinette, we have been looking for you everywhere." It was the Comtesse de Serizy who spoke as she opened the door.

"I came here to breathe," said the Duchess; "it is unbearably hot in the rooms.""People thought that you had gone; but my brother Ronquerolles told me that your servants were waiting for you.""I am tired out, dear, let me stay and rest here for a minute,"and the Duchess sat down on the sofa.

"Why, what is the matter with you? You are shaking from head to foot!"The Marquis de Ronquerolles came in.

"Mme la Duchesse, I was afraid that something might have happened.I have just come across your coachman, the man is as tipsy as all the Swiss in Switzerland."The Duchess made no answer; she was looking round the room, at the chimney-piece and the tall mirrors, seeking the trace of an opening.Then with an extraordinary sensation she recollected that she was again in the midst of the gaiety of the ballroom after that terrific scene which had changed the whole course of her life.She began to shiver violently.

"M.de Montriveau's prophecy has shaken my nerves," she said.

"It was a joke, but still I will see whether his axe from London will haunt me even in my sleep.So good-bye, dear.--Good-bye, M.

le Marquis."

As she went through the rooms she was beset with enquiries and regrets.Her world seemed to have dwindled now that she, its queen, had fallen so low, was so diminished.And what, moreover, were these men compared with him whom she loved with all her heart; with the man grown great by all that she had lost in stature? The giant had regained the height that he had lost for a while, and she exaggerated it perhaps beyond measure.She looked, in spite of herself, at the servant who had attended her to the ball.He was fast asleep.

"Have you been here all the time?" she asked.

"Yes, madame."

As she took her seat in her carriage she saw, in fact, that her coachman was drunk--so drunk, that at any other time she would have been afraid; but after a great crisis in life, fear loses its appetite for common food.She reached home, at any rate, without accident; but even there she felt a change in herself, a new feeling that she could not shake off.For her, there was now but one man in the world; which is to say that henceforth she cared to shine for his sake alone.

While the physiologist can define love promptly by following out natural laws, the moralist finds a far more perplexing problem before him if he attempts to consider love in all its developments due to social conditions.Still, in spite of the heresies of the endless sects that divide the church of Love, there is one broad and trenchant line of difference in doctrine, a line that all the discussion in the world can never deflect.Arigid application of this line explains the nature of the crisis through which the Duchess, like most women, was to pass.Passion she knew, but she did not love as yet.

Love and passion are two different conditions which poets and men of the world, philosophers and fools, alike continually confound.

Love implies a give and take, a certainty of bliss that nothing can change; it means so close a clinging of the heart, and an exchange of happiness so constant, that there is no room left for jealousy.Then possession is a means and not an end;unfaithfulness may give pain, but the bond is not less close; the soul is neither more nor less ardent or troubled, but happy at every moment; in short, the divine breath of desire spreading from end to end of the immensity of Time steeps it all for us in the selfsame hue; life takes the tint of the unclouded heaven.

But Passion is the foreshadowing of Love, and of that Infinite to which all suffering souls aspire.Passion is a hope that may be cheated.Passion means both suffering and transition.Passion dies out when hope is dead.Men and women may pass through this experience many times without dishonour, for it is so natural to spring towards happiness; but there is only one love in a lifetime.All discussions of sentiment ever conducted on paper or by word of mouth may therefore be resumed by two questions--"Is it passion? Is it love?" So, since love comes into existence only through the intimate experience of the bliss which gives it lasting life, the Duchess was beneath the yoke of passion as yet; and as she knew the fierce tumult, the unconscious calculations, the fevered cravings, and all that is meant by that word PASSION--she suffered.Through all the trouble of her soul there rose eddying gusts of tempest, raised by vanity or self-love, or pride or a high spirit; for all these forms of egoism make common cause together.