Though the gentleman’s familiarity was that of a father, his freedom seemed at the moment to annoy the young girl.
“What, are you sulky with me?” he said.
Then he shot at Schinner one of those side-looks full of shrewdness and cunning, diplomatic looks, whose expression betrays the discreet uneasiness, the polite curiosity of well-bred people, and seems to ask, when they see a stranger, “Is he one of us?”
“This is our neighbor,” said the old lady, pointing to Hippolyte. “Monsieur is a celebrated painter, whose name must be known to you in spite of your indifference to the arts.”
The old man saw his friend’s mischievous intent in suppressing the name, and bowed to the young man.
“Certainly,” said he. “I heard a great deal about his pictures at the last Salon. Talent has immense privileges,” he added, observing the artist’s red ribbon. “That distinction, which we must earn at the cost of our blood and long service, you win in your youth; but all glory is of the same kindred,” he said, laying his hand on his Cross of Saint-Louis.
Hippolyte murmured a few words of acknowledgment, and was silent again, satisfied to admire with growing enthusiasm the beautiful girl’s head that charmed him so much. He was soon lost in contemplation, completely forgetting the extreme misery of the dwelling. To him Adélaïde’s face stood out against a luminous atmosphere. He replied briefly to the questions addressed to him, which, by good luck, he heard, thanks to a singular faculty of the soul which sometimes seems to have a double consciousness. Who has not known what it is to sit lost in sad or delicious meditation, listening to its voice within, while attending to a conversation or to reading? An admirable duality which often helps us to tolerate a bore! Hope, prolific and smiling, poured out before him a thousand visions of happiness; and he refused to consider what was going on around him. As confiding as a child, it seemed to him base to analyze a pleasure.
After a short lapse of time he perceived that the old lady and her daughter were playing cards with the old gentleman. As to the satellite, faithful to his function as a shadow, he stood behind his friend’s chair watching his game, and answering the player’s mute inquiries by little approving nods, repeating the questioning gestures of the other countenance.
“Du Halga, I always lose,” said the gentleman.
“You discard badly,” replied the Baronne de Rouville.
“For three months now I have never won a single game,” said he.
“Have you the aces?” asked the old lady.
“Yes, one more to mark,” said he.
“Shall I come and advise you?” said Adélaïde.
“No, no. Stay where I can see you. By Gad, it would be losing too much not to have you to look at!”
At last the game was over. The gentleman pulled out his purse, and, throwing two louis d’or on the table, not without temper—
“Forty francs,” he exclaimed, “the exact sum.—Deuce take it! It is eleven o’clock.”
“It is eleven o’clock,” repeated the silent figure, looking at the painter.
The young man, hearing these words rather more distinctly than all the others, thought it time to retire. Coming back to the world of ordinary ideas, he found a few commonplace remarks to make, took leave of the Baroness, her daughter, and the two strangers, and went away, wholly possessed by the first raptures of true love, without attempting to analyze the little incidents of the evening.
On the morrow the young painter felt the most ardent desire to see Adélaïde once more. If he had followed the call of his passion, he would have gone to his neighbor’s door at six in the morning, when he went to his studio. However, he still was reasonable enough to wait till the afternoon. But as soon as he thought he could present himself to Madame de Rouville, he went downstairs, rang, blushing like a girl, shyly asked Mademoiselle Leseigneur, who came to let him in, to let him have the portrait of the Baron.
“But come in,” said Adélaïde, who had no doubt heard him come down from the studio.
The painter followed, bashful and out of countenance, not knowing what to say, happiness had so dulled his wit. To see Adélaïde, to hear the rustle of her skirt, after longing for a whole morning to be near her, after starting up a hundred time—“I will go down now”—and not to have gone; this was to him life so rich that such sensations, too greatly prolonged, would have worn out his spirit. The heart has the singular power of giving extraordinary value to mere nothings. What joy it is to a traveler to treasure a blade of grass, an unfamiliar leaf, if he has risked his life to pluck it! It is the same with the trifles of love.
The old lady was not in the drawing-room. When the young girl found herself there, alone with the painter, she brought a chair to stand on, to take down the picture; but perceiving that she could not unhook it without setting her foot on the chest of drawers, she turned to Hippolyte, and said with a blush:
“I am not tall enough. Will you get it down?”
A feeling of modesty, betrayed in the expression of her face and the tones of her voice, was the real motive of her request; and the young man, understanding this, gave her one of those glances of intelligence which are the sweetest language of love. Seeing that the painter had read her soul, Adélaïde cast down her eyes with the instinct of reserve which is the secret of a maiden’s heart. Hippolyte, finding nothing to say, and feeling almost timid, took down the picture, examined it gravely, carrying it to the light of the window, and then went away, without saying a word to Mademoiselle Leseigneur but, “I will return it soon.”
During this brief moment they both went through one of those storms
