Thaddeus went to his room to dress, his heart at once rejoicing and oppressed by an agonizing flutter. He came down at the last moment, and all through dinner played his part of a soldier fit for nothing but to fulfil the duties of a steward. But this time Clémentine was not his dupe. His look had enlightened her. Ronquerolles, the cleverest of ambassadors next to Talleyrand, and who served de Marsay so well during his short ministry, was informed by his niece of the high merits of Count Paz, who so modestly made himself his friend’s steward.
“And how is it that this is the first time I have ever seen Count Paz?” asked the Marquis de Ronquerolles.
“Eh! he is very sly and underhand,” replied Clémentine, with a look at Paz to desire him to change his demeanor.
Alas! it must be owned, at the risk of making the Captain less interesting to the reader, Paz, though superior to his friend Adam, was not a man of strong temper. He owed his apparent superiority to his misfortunes. In his days of poverty and isolation at Warsaw he had read and educated himself, had compared and thought much; but the creative power which makes a great man he did not possess—can it ever be acquired? Paz was great only through his feelings, and there could rise to the sublime; but in the sphere of sentiment, being a man of action rather than of ideas, he kept his thoughts to himself. His thoughts, then, did nothing but eat his heart out.
And what, after all, is an unuttered thought?
At Clémentine’s speech the Marquis de Ronquerolles and his sister exchanged glances, with a side look at their niece, Count Adam, and Paz. It was one of those swift dramas which are played only in Italy or in Paris. Only in these two parts of the world—excepting at all courts—can the eyes say as much. To infuse into the eye all the power of the soul, to give it the full value of speech and throw a poem or a drama into a single flash, excessive servitude or excessive liberty is needed.
Adam, the Marquis du Rouvre, and the Countess did not perceive this flash of observation between a past coquette and an old diplomatist; but Paz, like a faithful dog, understood its forecast. It was, you must remember, an affair of two seconds. To describe the hurricane that ravaged the Captain’s heart would be too elaborate for these days.
“What! the uncle and aunt already fancy that she perhaps loves me?” said he to himself. “My happiness then depends only on my own audacity.—And Adam! …”
Ideal love and mere desire, both quite as potent as friendship and gratitude, rent his soul, and for a moment love had the upper hand. This poor heroic lover longed to have his day! Paz became witty; he intended to please, and in answer to some question from Monsieur de Ronquerolles he sketched in grand outlines the Polish rebellion. Thus, at dessert, Paz saw Clémentine hanging on his lips, regarding him as a hero, and forgetting that Adam, after sacrificing a third of his immense fortune, had taken the risks of exile. At nine o’clock, having taken coffee, Madame de Sérizy kissed her niece on the forehead and took leave, carrying off Count Adam with an assertion of authority, and leaving the Marquis du Rouvre and M. de Ronquerolles, who withdrew ten minutes later. Paz and Clémentine were left together.
“I will bid you good night, madame,” said Thaddeus; “you will join them at the opera.”
“No,” replied she. “I do not care for dancing, and they are giving an odious ballet this evening, The Revolt of the Seraglio.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Two years ago Adam would not have gone without me,” she went on, without looking at Paz.
“He loves you to distraction—” Thaddeus began.
“Oh! it is because he loves me to distraction that by tomorrow he will perhaps have ceased to love me!” exclaimed the Countess.
“The women of Paris are inexplicable,” said Thaddeus. “When they are loved to distraction, they want to be loved rationally; when they are loved rationally, they accuse a man of not knowing how to love.”
“And they are always right, Thaddeus,” she replied with a smile. “I know Adam well; I owe him no grudge for it; he is fickle, and, above all, a great gentleman; he will always be pleased to have me for his wife, and will never thwart me in any of my tastes; but—”
“What marriage was ever without a but?” said Thaddeus gently, trying to give the Countess’ thoughts another direction.
The least conceited man would perhaps have had the thought which nearly drove this lover mad: “If I do not tell her that I love her,” said he to himself, “I am an idiot!”
There was silence between these two, one of those terrible pauses which seem bursting with thoughts. The Countess fixed a covert gaze on Paz, and Paz watched her in a mirror. Sitting back in his armchair, like a man given up to digestion, in the attitude of an old man or an indifferent husband, the Captain clasped his hands over his stomach, and mechanically twirled his thumbs, looking stupidly at their rapid movement.
“But say something good about Adam!” exclaimed Clémentine. “Tell me that he is not fickle, you who know him so well.”
The appeal was sublime.
“This is the opportunity for raising an insurmountable barrier between us,” thought the unhappy Paz, devising a heroic lie.—“Something good?” he said aloud. “I love him too well, you would not believe me. I am incapable of telling you any evil of him. … And so … Madame, I have a hard part to play between you two.”
Clémentine looked down, fixing her eyes on his patent leather shoes.
“You northerners have mere physical courage, you have no constancy in your decisions,”
