After dinner, when his old aunt had settled down to her knitting again, when the curé of Guérande and the Chevalier du Halga came in, attracted by their game of mouche, Calyste went out to go back to les Touches, saying he must return Béatrix’s letter.
Claude Vignon and Mademoiselle des Touches were still at table. The great critic had a tendency to greediness, and this vice was humored by Félicité, who knew how a woman makes herself indispensable by such attentions.
The dining-room, lately finished by considerable additions, showed how readily and how quickly a woman can marry the nature, adopt the profession, the passions, and the tastes of the man she loves, or means to love. The table had the rich and dazzling appearance which modern luxury, seconded by the improvements in manufactures, stamps on every detail. The noble but impoverished house of du Guénic knew not the antagonist with whom it had to do battle, nor how large a sum was needed to contend with the brand-new plate brought from Paris by Mademoiselle des Touches, with her china—thought good enough for the country—her fine linen, her silver gilt, all the trifles on her table, and all the skill of her man cook.
Calyste declined to take any of the liqueurs contained in one of the beautiful inlaid cases of precious woods, that might be shrines.
“Here is your letter,” he said, with childish ostentation, looking at Claude, who was sipping a glass of West Indian liqueur.
“Well, what do you think of it?” asked Mademoiselle des Touches, tossing the letter across the table to Vignon, who read it, alternately lifting and setting down his glass.
“Why—that the women of Paris are very happy; they all have men of genius, who love them, to worship.”
“Dear me, you are still but a rustic!” said Félicité, with a laugh. “What! You did not discover that she already loves him less, that—”
“It is self-evident!” said Claude Vignon, who had as yet read no more than the first page. “When a woman is really in love, does she trouble her head in the least about her position? Is she as finely observant as the Marquise? Can she calculate? Can she distinguish? Our dear Béatrix is tied to Conti by her pride; she is condemned to love him, come what may.”
“Poor woman!” said Camille.
Calyste sat staring at the table, but he saw nothing. The beautiful creature in her fantastic costume, as sketched by Félicité that morning, rose before him, radiant with light; she smiled on him, she played with her fan, and her other hand, emerging from a frill of lace and cherry-colored velvet, lay white and still on the full folds of her magnificent petticoat.
“This is the very thing for you,” said Claude Vignon, with a sardonic smile at Calyste.
Calyste was offended at the words the very thing.
“Do not suggest the idea of such an intrigue to the dear child; you do not know how dangerous such a jest may be. I know Béatrix; she has too much magnanimity of temper to change; besides, Conti will be with her.”
“Ah!” said Claude Vignon, satirically, “a little twinge of jealousy, heh?”
“Can you suppose it?” said Camille, proudly.
“You are more clear-sighted than a mother could be,” replied Claude.
“But, I ask you, is it possible?” and she looked at Calyste.
“And yet,” Vignon went on, “they would be well matched. She is ten years older than he is; he would be the girl.”
“A girl, monsieur, who has twice been under fire in la Vendée. If there had but been twenty thousand of such girls—”
“I was singing your praise,” said Vignon, “an easier matter than singeing your beard.”
“I have a sword to cut the beards of those who wear them too long,” retorted Calyste.
“And I have a tongue that cuts sharply, too,” replied Vignon, smiling. “We are Frenchmen—the affair can be arranged.”
Mademoiselle des Touches gave Calyste a beseeching look, which calmed him at once.
“Why,” said Félicité, to end the discussion, “why is it that youths, like my Calyste there, always begin by loving women no longer young?”
“I know of no more guileless and generous impulse,” said Vignon. “It is the consequence of the delightful qualities of youth. And besides, to what end would old women come if it were not for such love? You are young and handsome, and will be for twenty years to come; before you we may speak plainly,” he went on, with a keen glance at Mademoiselle des Touches. “In the first place, the semi-dowagers to whom very young men attach themselves know how to love far better than young women. A youth is too like a woman for a young woman to attract him. Such a passion is too suggestive of the myth of Narcissus. Besides this, there is, I believe, a common want of experience which keeps them asunder. Hence the reason which makes it true that a young woman’s heart can only be understood by a man in whom long practice is veiled by his real or assumed passion, is the same as that which, allowing for differences of nature, makes a woman past her youth more seductive to a boy; he is intensely conscious that he shall succeed with her, and the woman’s vanity is intensely flattered by his pursuit of her.
“Then, again, it is natural that the young should seize on fruit, and autumn offers many fine and luscious kinds. Is it nothing to meet those looks, at once bold and reserved, languishing at the proper moments, soft with the last gleams of love, so warm, so soothing? And the elaborate elegance of speech, the splendid ripe shoulders so finely filled out, the ample roundness, the rich and undulating plumpness, the hands full of dimples, the pulpy, well-nourished skin, the brow full of overflowing sentiment, on which the
