Hippolyte sat down in his studio, gazed at his picture without doing anything to it, seeing the figures through tears that swelled in his eyes, holding his brush in his hand, going up to the canvas as if to soften down an effect, but not touching it. Night fell, and he was still in this attitude. Roused from his moodiness by the darkness, he went downstairs, met the old admiral on the way, looked darkly at him as he bowed, and fled.
He had intended going in to see the ladies, but the sight of Adélaïde’s protector froze his heart and dispelled his purpose. For the hundredth time he wondered what interest could bring this old prodigal, with his eighty thousand francs a year, to this fourth story, where he lost about forty francs every evening; and he thought he could guess what it was.
The next and following days Hippolyte threw himself into his work, and to try to conquer his passion by the swift rush of ideas and the ardor of composition. He half succeeded. Study consoled him, though it could not smother the memories of so many tender hours spent with Adélaïde.
One evening, as he left his studio, he saw the door of the ladies’ rooms half open. Somebody was standing in the recess of the window, and the position of the door and the staircase made it impossible that the painter should pass without seeing Adélaïde. He bowed coldly, with a glance of supreme indifference; but judging of the girl’s suffering by his own, he felt an inward shudder as he reflected on the bitterness which that look and that coldness must produce in a loving heart. To crown the most delightful feast which ever brought joy to two pure souls, by eight days of disdain, of the deepest and most utter contempt!—A frightful conclusion. And perhaps the purse had been found, perhaps Adélaïde had looked for her friend every evening.
This simple and natural idea filled the lover with fresh remorse; he asked himself whether the proofs of attachment given him by the young girl, the delightful talks, full of the love that had so charmed him, did not deserve at least an inquiry; were not worthy of some justification. Ashamed of having resisted the promptings of his heart for a whole week, and feeling himself almost a criminal in this mental struggle, he called the same evening on Madame de Rouville.
All his suspicions, all his evil thoughts vanished at the sight of the young girl, who had grown pale and thin.
“Good heavens! what is the matter?” he asked her, after greeting the Baroness.
Adélaïde made no reply, but she gave him a look of deep melancholy, a sad, dejected look, which pained him.
“You have, no doubt, been working hard,” said the old lady. “You are altered. We are the cause of your seclusion. That portrait had delayed some pictures essential to your reputation.”
Hippolyte was glad to find so good an excuse for his rudeness.
“Yes,” he said, “I have been very busy, but I have been suffering—”
At these words Adélaïde raised her head, looked at her lover, and her anxious eyes had now no hint of reproach.
“You must have thought us quite indifferent to any good or ill that may befall you?” said the old lady.
“I was wrong,” he replied. “Still, there are forms of pain which we know not how to confide to anyone, even to a friendship of older date than that with which you honor me.”
“The sincerity and strength of friendship are not to be measured by time. I have seen old friends who had not a tear to bestow on misfortune,” said the Baroness, nodding sadly.
“But you—what ails you?” the young man asked Adélaïde.
“Oh, nothing,” replied the Baroness. “Adélaïde has sat up late for some nights to finish some little piece of woman’s work, and would not listen to me when I told her that a day more or less did not matter—”
Hippolyte was not listening. As he looked at these two noble, calm faces, he blushed for his suspicions, and ascribed the loss of his purse to some unknown accident.
This was a delicious evening to him, and perhaps to her too. There are some secrets which young souls understand so well. Adélaïde could read Hippolyte’s thoughts. Though he could not confess his misdeeds, the painter knew them, and he had come back to his mistress more in love, and more affectionate, trying thus to purchase her tacit forgiveness. Adélaïde was enjoying such perfect, such sweet happiness, that she did not think she had paid too dear for it with all the grief that had so cruelly crushed her soul. And yet, this true concord of hearts, this understanding so full of magic charm, was disturbed by a little speech of Madame de Rouville’s.
“Let us have our little game,” she said, “for my old friend Kergarouët will not let me off.”
These words revived all the young painter’s fears; he colored as he looked at Adélaïde’s mother, but he saw nothing in her countenance but the expression of the frankest good-nature; no double meaning marred its charm; its keenness was not perifidious, its humor seemed kindly, and no trace of remorse disturbed its equanimity.
He sat down to the card-table. Adélaïde took side with the painter, saying that he did not know piquet, and needed a partner.
All through the game Madame de Rouville and her daughter exchanged looks of intelligence, which alarmed Hippolyte all the more because he was winning; but at last a final hand left the lovers in the old lady’s debt.
To feel for some money in his pocket the painter took his hands off the table, and he then saw before him
