"Never!" cried Lectoure, interrupting her, for he appeared as eager to avoid the frank explanation, which Marguerite desired, as she seemed to provoke it. "Never! and above all, since I have seen you, I could not hope to be worthy of your love. And yet my name, my position in society, notwithstanding I should fail to influence your heart, may yet give me a t.i.tle to your hand."

"But how, sir," said Marguerite, timidly, "how can you separate the one from the other?"

"As do three-fourths of the people who get married, mademoiselle,"

replied Lectoure, with a carelessness which would have at once deterred the confidence of a woman less candid than Marguerite. "A man marries in order to have a wife, the wife to have a husband; it is a social compact, an arrangement of convenience. What can love have to do in a matter of this nature?"

"Your pardon, sir; perhaps I have not clearly expressed my meaning,"

continued Marguerite, making an effort to control her feelings, and to conceal from the man upon whom her future fate depended, the impression his words had produced upon her mind. "But you must attribute my hesitation, sir, to the timidity of a young girl, compelled by imperious circ.u.mstances to speak on such a subject."

"Not at all, mademoiselle," replied Lectoure, bowing and giving to his voice a tone which nearly approached raillery; "on the contrary, you speak like _Clarissa Harlowe_, and all you say is as clear as daylight.

G.o.d has endowed me with a mind sufficiently quick-sighted perfectly to comprehend things which are but hinted at."

"How, sir!" cried Marguerite, "you comprehend what I had the intention of saying, and you allow me to continue? How would it be if on looking deeply into my heart and interrogating all its feelings, I found it impossible to love--to love the person who had been presented to me as my future husband?"

"Why," replied Lectoure, in the same sarcastic tone in which he had before spoken, "in my opinion the best course to pursue would be not to tell him of it."

"And why not, sir?"

"Because--but--but--because it would really be too simple."

"And if that avowal were made, not from simplicity but from delicacy?

If I added, and may the shame of such an avowal fall back on those who compel me to make it--if I added sir, that I have loved, that I still love?"

"Oh! some little romance, is it not so?" said Lectoure, carelessly, crossing his leg and playing with the frill of his shirt; "upon my honor, the race of little cousins is an accursed race. But fortunately we know what these ephemeral attachments are; and there is not a school-girl, who, after the holidays, does not return to her convent but with a pa.s.sion in her little heart."

"Unfortunately for me," replied Marguerite, with, a voice as sorrowful and grave as that of the baron was sarcastic and light, "unfortunately, I am no longer a school-girl, sir; and although still young, I have long ago pa.s.sed the age of childish games and infantine attachments. When I speak to the man who does me the honor to solicit my hand and to offer me his name, of my love for another, he ought to understand that I am speaking of a serious, profound, and eternal love; of one of those pa.s.sions, in fine, which leave their traces in the heart, and imprint them there for ever."

"The devil!" exclaimed Lectoure, as if beginning to attach some importance to Marguerite's confession; "why, this is perfectly pastoral.

But let us see! is it a young man whom one can receive at one's house?"

"Oh! sir," cried Marguerite, catching at the hope which these words seemed to inspire: "oh! believe me, he is the most estimable being, the most devoted soul----"

"Why, I am not asking you to tell me this--I was not speaking of the qualities of his heart--he has all these, of course, that's perfectly understood. I ask you whether he is n.o.ble? if he is of good race?

in short, whether a woman of quality could acknowledge him, and that without degrading her husband?"

"His father, whom he lost when very young, and who was my father's friend from infancy, was a counsellor at the Court of Rennes."

"n.o.bility of the bar!" exclaimed Lectoure, dropping his nether lip with a contemptuous shrug; "I would rather it were otherwise--is he a knight of Malta, at least?"

"He was educated for a military life."

"Oh! then, we must get a regiment for him, to give him rank and standing in society. Well, that's all arranged, and it is well. Now, listen to me: he will absent himself for six months, merely for decency's sake, will obtain leave of absence, no difficult matter now, as we are not at war--he will get himself presented to you for form's sake, by some mutual friend, and then all will go on rightly."

"I do not understand you, sir," replied Marguerite, looking at the baron with an expression of profound astonishment.

"What I have said to you is, notwithstanding, perfectly pellucid,"

rejoined the latter, with some show of impatience; "you have engagements on your side--I have on mine--but that is no reason for preventing an union which is perfectly suitable in every respect; and once accomplished, why, I think, we are bound to render it as bearable as we can. Do you comprehend me now?"

"Oh! pardon me, sir, pardon me," cried Marguerite, starting back, as though these words had outraged her; "I have been very imprudent, very culpable perhaps; but whatever I may have been, I did not dream I could have merited so gross an insult. Oh! sir, the blush of shame is now scorching my cheek, but more for you than for myself. Yes, I understand you--an apparent love and a concealed one; the face of vice and the mask of virtue; and it is to me--to me, the daughter of the Marquis d'Auray, that so shameful, so humiliating, so infamous a bargain is proposed.

Oh!" continued she, falling into an arm-chair, and hiding her face with both her hands, "I must then be a most unfortunate, most contemptible lost creature! Oh! my G.o.d! my G.o.d!"

"Emanuel! Emanuel!" cried the baron, opening the door, at which he rightly suspected Marguerite's brother had remained; "come in, my dear friend; your sister is attacked with spasms; these things ought to be attended to, or they may become chronic; Madame do Moulan died of them.

Here, take my scent bottle, and let her smell at it. As to myself, I am going down into the park. If you have nothing else to do, you can rejoin me there, and bring me, if you please, news of your sister."

Saying these words, the Baron de Lectoure left the room with miraculous calmness, leaving Marguerite and Emanuel together.

CHAPTER XII.--THE CHALLENGE.

Do as you will, heap wrongs on wrongs upon me, It shall not anger me--I tell thee Claudius, Thou art enshrined in a holy circle My foot can never pa.s.s--nor taunt, nor insult Can e'er induce this hand to rise against thee.

Therefore be satisfied-- Once more I tell theo I will not fight with thee.

--Old Play.

On the day on which the interview between Marguerite and the Baron de Lectoure had taken place, the result of which had proved so diametrically opposed to the hopes and expectations of the young girl, on that day at four o'clock, the dinner bell recalled the baron to the castle. Emanuel did the honors of the table, for the marchioness could not leave her husband, and Marguerite had requested permission not to come down stairs. The other guests were the notary, the relations of the family, and the witnesses. The repast was a gloomy one, notwithstanding the imperturbable gaiety of Lectoure; but it was evident that by his joyous humor, so stirring that it appeared feverish, he strove to stun his own feelings. From time to time, indeed, his boisterous liveliness failed all at once, like a lamp, the oil of which is nearly extinguished, and then it suddenly burst forth again, as doth the flame when it devours its last aliment. At seven o'clock they rose from table, and went into the drawing-room. It would be difficult to form an idea of the strange aspect which the old castle then presented; the vast apartments of which were hung with damask draperies, with gothic designs, and ornamented with furniture of the times of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV.

They had been so long closed that they appeared unaccustomed to the presence of living beings. And, therefore, notwithstanding the abundance of chandeliers with which the servants had decorated the rooms, the feeble and vascillating light of the wax candles was insufficient to illuminate the vast rooms, and in which the voice resounded as under the arches of a cathedral. The small number of the guests, who were to be joined during the evening by some three or four gentlemen of the neighbourhood, increased the gloom which appeared to hover over the emblazoned columns of the castle. In the centre of one of the saloons, the same one in which Emanuel, at the moment after his arrival from Paris, had received Captain Paul, was placed a table prepared with much solemnity, on which was laid a closed portfolio, which, to the eyes of a stranger ignorant of all that was preparing, might as well have enclosed a death warrant as a marriage contract. In the midst of these grave aspects and gloomy impressions, from time to time a shrill mocking laugh would reach the ears of a group of persons whispering to each other. It proceeded from Lectoure, who was amusing himself at the expense of some good country gentlemen, without any respect for the feelings of Emanuel, upon whom a portion of his raillery necessarily recoiled. He would, however, every now and then cast an anxious glance around the room, and then a gloomy cloud would pervade his features, for he saw not either his father-in-law, or the marchioness, or Marguerite enter the room.

As we have already stated, that neither of them had been present at the dinner table, and his interview with the latter had not, however careless he endeavored to appear, left him without some uneasiness with regard to the signing of the contract, which was to take place during the evening. Neither was Emanuel exempt from all anxiety, and he had just determined to go up to his sister's apartment, when in pa.s.sing through one of the rooms he saw Lectoure, who made a sign to him to draw near.

"By heaven! you have come in the nick of time, my dear count," said he to him, while appearing to pay the greatest attention to a good country gentleman, who was talking to him, and of whom he seemed on terms of perfect intimacy; "here is M. de Nozay, who is relating to me some very curious things, upon my word! But do you know," continued he, turning to the narrator, "this is most admirable, and highly interesting. I also have marshes and ponds, and I must ask my steward as soon as I get to Paris, to tell me where they are situated. And do you catch many wild ducks in this way."

"An immense quant.i.ty," replied the gentleman, and with the accent of perfect simplicity, which proved that Lectoure could, without fear of detection, for some time longer sustain the conversation in the same tone.

"What, then, is this miraculous mode of sporting?" inquired Emanuel.

"Only imagine, my dear friend," replied Lectoure, with the most complete sang froid, "that this gentleman gets into the water up to his neck,--At what time of the year, may I ask, without being indiscreet?"

"In the month of December and January."

"It is impossible that any thing can be more picturesque. I was saying, then, that he gets into the water up to his neck, puts a large toadstool over his head, and conceals himself among the bulrushes. This so completely metamorphoses him that the ducks do not recognise him, and allow him to come close to them. Did you not say so?"

"As near as I am to you."

"Bah! really?" exclaimed Emanuel.

"And this gentleman kills just as many as he pleases."

"I kill them by dozens," said he, proudly, being enchanted by the attention which the two young men were paying to the recital of his exploits.

"It must be a delightful thing for your good lady, if she be fond of ducks," said Emanuel.

"She adores them," said M. de Nozay.

"I hope you will do me the honor to introduce me to so interesting a person," said Lectoure, bowing.

"Undoubtedly baron."

"I swear to you," said Lectoure, "that instantly on my return to Paris, I will speak of this sport in the king's dressing-room, and I am persuaded that his majesty himself will make a trial of it in one of his large ponds of Versailles."