monotonous movement of the feet. To live in this way is to follow a calling like that of those horses which turn the wheel of some well with bandaged eyes, and travel thousands of leagues without seeing anything or changing their situation. I have been turning for a long time, and the bucket should have quite come up.'
Rosette-“You have many points of resemblance with D'Albert, and when you speak it seems to me sometimes as though he were the speaker. I have no doubt that when you are further acquainted with him you will become much attached to him; you cannot fail to suit each other. He is harassed as you are by these aimless flights; he loves immensely without knowing what, he would ascend to heaven, for the earth appears to him a stool scarcely good enough for one of his feet, and he has more pride than Lucifer had before his fall.”
Theodore-“I was at first afraid that he. was one of those numerous poets who have driven poetry from the earth, one of those stringers of sham pearls who can see nothing in the world but the last syllables of words, and who when they have rhymed glade with shade, flame with name, and God with trod, conscientiously cross their legs and arms and suffer the spheres to complete their revolution.”
Rosette-“He is not one of those. His verses are inferior to him and do not contain him. What he has written would give you a very false idea of his own person; his true poem is himself, and I do not know whether he will ever compose another. In the recesses of his soul he has a seraglio of beautiful ideas which he surrounds with a triple wall, and of which he is more jealous than was ever sultan of his odalisques. He only puts those into his verses which he does not care about or which have repulsed him; it is the door through which he drives them away, and the world has only those which he will keep no longer.”
Theodore-“I can understand this jealousy and shame. In the same way many people do not acknowledge the love they had until they have it no longer, nor their mistresses until they are dead.”
Rosette-“It is so difficult to alone possess a thing in this world! every touch attracts so many butterflies, and every treasure so many thieves! I like those silent ones who carry their idea into their grave, and will not surrender it to the foul kisses and shameless touches of the crowd. I am delighted with the lovers who do not write their mistress's name on any bark, nor confide it to any echo, and who, when sleeping, are pursued by the dread lest they should utter it in a dream. I am one of the number; I have never spoken my thought, and none shall know my love-but see, it is nearly eleven o'clock, my dear Theodore, and I am preventing you from taking the rest that you must need. When I am obliged to leave you, I always feel a heaviness of heart, and it seems to me the last time that I shall see you. I delay the parting as much as possible; but one must part at last. Well, good-bye, for I am afraid that D'Albert will be looking for me; dear friend, good-bye.”
Theodore put his arm about her waist, and led her thus to the door; there he stopped following her for a long time with his gaze; the corridor was pierced at wide intervals with little narrow-paned windows, which were lit up by the moon, and made a very fantastic alternation of light and shade. At each window Rosette's white, pure form shone like a silver phantom; then it would vanish to reappear with greater brilliance a little further off; at last it disappeared altogether.
Theodore, seemingly lost in deep thought, remained motionless for a few minutes with folded arms; then he passed his hand over his forehead and threw back his hair with a movement of his head, re-entered the room, and went to bed after kissing the brow of the page who was still asleep.
VII
As soon as it was light at Rosette's, D'Albert had himself announced with a promptness that was not usual with him.
“Here you are,” said Rosette, “and I should say you were early, if you could ever come early. And so, to reward you for your gallantry, I grant you my hand to kiss.”
And from beneath the lace-trimmed sheet of Flanders linen, she drew the prettiest little hand that was ever seen at the end of a round, plump arm.
D'Albert kissed it with compunction.
“And the other one, its little sister, are we not to kiss it as well?”
“Oh, dear, yes! nothing more feasible. I am in my Sunday humor to-day; here.” And, bringing her other hand out of the bed, she tapped him lightly on the mouth. “Am I not the most accommodating woman in the world?”
“You are grace itself, and should have white marble temples raised to you in myrtle groves. Indeed I am much afraid that there will happen to you what happened to Psyche, and that Venus will become jealous of you,” said D'Albert joining both the hands of the fair one and carrying them together to his lips.
“How you deliver all that in a breath! One would say that it was a phrase you had learnt by heart,” said Rosette with a delicious little pout.
“Not at all; you are quite worthy of having a phrase turned expressly for you, and you are made to pluck the virginity of madrigals,” returned D' Albert. “Oh, indeed! really-what makes you so lively to-day? Are you ill that you are so polite? I fear that you will die. Do you know that it is a bad sign when anyone changes his character all at once with no apparent reason? Now, it is an established fact, in the eyes of all the women who have taken the trouble to love you, that you are usually as cross as you can be, and it is no less certain that at this moment you are as charming as one can be, and are displaying most inexplicable amiability. There, I do think that you are looking pale, my poor D'Albert; give me your arm, that I may feel your pulse.” And she drew up his sleeve and counted the beats with comical gravity. “No, you are as well as possible, without the slightest symptom of fever. Then I must be furiously pretty this morning! Just get me my mirror, and let me see how far your gallantry is right or wrong.”
D'Albert took up a little mirror that was on the toilet-table and laid it on the bed.
“In point of fact,” said Rosette, “you are not altogether wrong. Why do you not make a sonnet on my eyes, sir poet? You have no reason for not doing so. Just see how unfortunate I am! to have eyes like that and a poet like this, and yet to be in want of sonnets, as though I were one-eyed with a water-carrier for my lover! You do not love me, sir; you have not even written me an acrostic sonnet. And what do you think of my mouth? Yet I have kissed you with that mouth, and shall, perhaps, do so again, my handsome gloomy one; and, indeed, it is a favor that you scarcely deserve (this is not meant for to-day, for you deserve everything); but not to be always talking about myself, you have unparalleled beauty and freshness this morning, you look like a brother of Aurora; and although it is scarcely light you are already dressed and got up as though you were going to a ball. Perchance you have designs upon me? would you deal a treacherous blow at my virtue? do you wish to make a conquest of me? But I forgot that that was done already, and is now ancient history.”
“Rosette, do not jest in that way; you know very well that I love you.”
“Why, that depends. I don't know it very well; and you?”
“Perfectly; and so true is it that if you were so kind as to forbid your door to everybody, I should endeavor to prove it to you, and, I venture to flatter myself, in a victorious fashion.”
“As for that, no; however much I may wish to be convinced, my door shall remain open; I am too pretty to have closed doors; the sun shines for everybody, and my beauty shall be like the sun to-day, if you have no objection.”
“But I have, on my honor; however, act as though I thought it excellent I am your very humble slave, and I lay my wishes at your feet.”
“That is quite right; continue to have sentiments of the kind, and leave the key in your door this evening.”
“The Chevalier Theodore de Serannes,” said a big negro's head, smiling and chubby-faced, appearing between the leaves of the folding-door, “wishes to pay his respects to you and entreats you to condescend to receive him.”
“Ask the chevalier to come in,” said Rosette, drawing up the sheet to her chin.
Theodore first went up to Rosette's bed and made her a most profound and graceful bow, to which she returned a friendly nod, and then turned towards D'Albert, and saluted him also with a free and Courteous air.
“Where were you?” said Theodore. “I have perhaps interrupted an interesting conversation. Pray continue, and acquaint me with the subject of it in a few words.”
“Oh, no!” replied Rosette with a mischievous smile; “we were talking of business.”
Theodore sat down at the foot of Rosette's bed, for D'Albert had placed himself beside the pillow, as being
