explain all this to you, it would be quite impossible for me to do so. When you came to us with your drawing of Saint Agnes, oh! I could have cried out, 'Thank you, thank you!' I was perfectly enchanted to work for you, as I thought you would certainly make us a daily visit. And yet, think of it! I pretended to be indifferent, as if I had taken upon myself the task of doing all in my power to drive you from the house. Has one ever the need of being willfully unhappy? Whilst in reality I longed to welcome you and to receive you with open hands, there seemed to be in the depths of my nature another woman than myself, who revolted, who was afraid of and mistrusted you-whose delight it was to torture you with uncertainty, in the vague idea of setting up a quarrel, the cause of which, in a time long passed, had been quite forgotten. I am not always good; often in my soul things seem to creep up that I cannot explain or account for. The worst of it was that I dared to speak to you of money. Fancy it, then! Of money! I, who have never thought of it, who would accept chariots of it, only for the pleasure of making it rain down as I wished, among the needy! What a malicious amusement I gave myself in this calumniating my character. Will you ever forgive me?'
CHAPTER IX
Felicien was at her feet. Until now he had kept his place in the remote corner of the balcony. But in the intense happiness she gave him in thus unfolding the innermost secrets of her soul he had drawn himself on his knees towards her, as he approached the window. This great, illimitable joy was so unlooked for, that he yielded to it in all the infinitude of its hopes of the future.
He half whispered:
'Ah, dear soul, pure, kind, and beautiful, your wonderful goodness has cured me as with a breath! I know not now if I have ever suffered. And, in your turn, you will now have to pardon me, for I have an acknowledgment to make to you. I must tell you who I am.'
He was troubled at the thought he could no longer disguise himself or his position, since she had confided so freely and entirely in him. It would be disloyal in the highest degree to do so. Yet he hesitated, lest he might, after all, lose her, were she to be anxious about the future when at last she knew the facts.
And she waited for him to speak again, a little malicious in spite of herself.
In a very low voice he continued:
'I have told a falsehood to your parents.'
'Yes, I know it,' she said as she smiled.
'No, you do not know it; you could not possibly know it, for all that happened too long ago. I only paint on glass for my own pleasure, and as a simple amusement; you really ought to be told of that.'
Then, with a quick movement, she put her hand on his mouth, as if she wished to prevent this explanation.
'I do not care to hear any more. I have been expecting you. I knew that sooner or later you would come, and you have done so. That is all-sufficient.'
They talked no longer for a while. That little hand over his lips seemed almost too great a happiness for him.
'When the right time comes, then I shall know all. Yet I assure you that I am ignorant of nothing connected with you, for everything had been revealed to me before our first meeting. You were to be, and can be, only the handsomest, the richest, and the most noble of men, the one above all others; for that has ever been my dream, and in the sure certainty of its full accomplishment I wait calmly. You are the chosen hero who it was ordained should come, and I am yours.'
A second time she interrupted herself in the tremor of the words she pronounced. She did not appear to say them by herself alone; they came to her as if sent by the beautiful night from the great white heavens, from the old trees, and the aged stones sleeping outside and dreaming aloud the fancies of the young girl. From behind her voices also whispered them to her, the voices of her friends in the 'Golden Legend,' with whom she had peopled the air and the space around her. In this atmosphere she had ever lived-mysticism, in which she revelled until it seemed fact on one side, and the daily work of life on the other. Nothing seemed strange to her.
Now but one word remained to be said-that which would express all the long waiting, the slow creation of affection, the constantly increasing fever of restlessness. It escaped from her lips like a cry from a distance, from the white flight of a bird mounting upward in the light of the early dawn, in the pure whiteness of the chamber behind her.
'I love you.'
Angelique, her two hands spread out, bent forward towards Felicien. And he recalled to himself the evening when she ran barefooted through the grass, making so adorable a picture that he pursued her in order to stammer in her ear these same words: 'I love you.' He knew that now she was simply replying to him with the same cry of affection, the eternal cry, which at last came from her freely-opened heart.
'Yes, I love you. I am yours. Lead the way, and I will follow you wherever it may be.'
In this surrender of her soul she gave herself to him fully and entirely. It was the hereditary flame relighted within her-the pride and the passion she thought had been conquered, but which awoke at the wish of her beloved. He trembled before this innocence, so ardent and so ingenuous. He took her hands gently, and crossed them upon her breast. For a moment he looked at her, radiant with the intense happiness her confession had given him, unwilling to wound her delicacy in the slightest degree, and not thinking of yielding to the temptation of even kissing her hair.
'You love me, and you know that I love you! Ah! what bliss there is in such knowledge.'
But they were suddenly drawn from their ecstatic state by a change about them. What did it all mean? They realised that now they were looking at each other under a great white light. It seemed to them as if the brightness of the moon had been increased, and was as resplendent as that of the sun. It was in reality the daybreak, a slight shade of which already tinged with purple the tops of the elm-trees in the neighbouring gardens. What? It could not be possible that the dawn had come? They were astonished by it, for they did not realise so long a time had passed since they began to talk together on the balcony. She had as yet told him nothing, and he had so many things he wished to say!
'Oh, stay one minute more, only one minute!' he exclaimed.
The daylight advanced still faster-the smiling morning, already warm, of what was to be a hot day in summer. One by one the stars were extinguished, and with them fled the wandering visions, and all the host of invisible friends seemed to mount upward and to glide away on the moon's rays.
Now, in the full, clear light, the room behind them had only its ordinary whiteness of walls and ceiling, and seemed quite empty with its old-fashioned furniture of dark oak. The velvet hangings were no longer there, and the bedstead had resumed its original shape, as it stood half hidden by the falling of one of its curtains.
'Do stay! Let me be near you only one minute more!'
Angelique, having risen, refused, and begged Felicien to leave immediately. Since the day had come, she had grown confused and anxious. The reality was now here. At her right hand, she seemed to hear a delicate movement of wings, whilst her hair was gently blown, although there was not the slightest breath of wind. Was it not Saint Agnes, who, having remained until the last, was now forced to leave, driven away by the sun?
'No, leave me, I beg of you. I am unwilling you should stay longer.'
Then Felicien, obedient, withdrew.
To know that he was beloved was enough for him, and satisfied him. Still, before leaving the balcony, he turned, and looked at her again fixedly, as if he wished to carry away with him an indelible remembrance of her. They both smiled at each other as they stood thus, bathed with light, in this long caressing look.
At last he said:
'I love you.'
And she gently replied:
'I love you.'
That was all, and he had in a moment, with the agility of a bird, gone down the woodwork of the corner of the building, while she, remaining on the balcony, leaned on the balustrade and watched him, with her tender, beautiful eyes. She had taken the bouquet of violets and breathed the perfume to cool her feverishness. When, in crossing the Clos-Marie, he lifted his head, he saw that she was kissing the flowers.
