THE SPHINX;

OR,

"JULIA DE TRECOEUR."

CHAPTER I.

"A BALEFUL AFFECTION."

All those who, like ourselves, knew Raoul de Trecoeur during his early youth, believed that he was destined to great fame. He had received quite remarkable gifts from nature; there are left from him two or three sketches and a few hundred verses that promised a master; but he was very rich, and had been very badly brought up; he soon gave himself up to dilettanteism. A perfect stranger, like most men of his generation, to the sentiment of duty, he permitted himself to be recklessly carried away by his instincts, which, fortunately for others, were more ardent than hurtful. Therefore was he generally pitied when he died, in the flower of his age, for having loved and enjoyed immoderately everything that he thought pleasant.

The poor fellow, they said, never did any harm but to himself; which, in point of fact, was not the exact truth. Trecoeur had married, at the age of twenty-five, his cousin, Clotilde Andree de Pers, a modest and graceful person who had of the world nothing but its elegance. Madame de Trecoeur had lived with her husband in an atmosphere of unhealthy storms, where she felt out of place, and, as it were, degraded. He tormented her with his remorse almost as much as he did with his faults. He looked upon her, and justly, as an angel, and wept at her feet when he had betrayed her, lamenting that he was unworthy of her; that he was the victim of his temperament, and that he had been born in a faithless age. He threatened once to kill himself in his wife's boudoir if she did not forgive him; she forgave him, of course. All this dramatic action disturbed Clotilde in her resigned existence. She would have preferred that her misery should have been more quiet and less declamatory.

All the friends of her husband had been in love with her, and had built great hopes upon her forlorn condition, but unfaithful husbands do not always make guilty wives. The reverse is rather more frequently the case, so little is this poor world submitted to the rules of logic. In short, Madame de Trecoeur, after her husband's death was left forlorn, exhausted, and broken down, but spotless.

From this melancholy union, a daughter had been born, named Julia, and whom her father, notwithstanding all Clotilde's efforts of resistance, had spoilt to excess. Monsieur de Trecoeur's idolatry for his daughter was well-known, and the world, with its habitual weakness of judgment, forgave him readily his scandalous existence in consideration of that merit, which is not always a great one. It is not, indeed, a very difficult matter to love one's children; it is sufficient for that not to be a monster. The love that one has for them is not in itself a virtue; it is a pa.s.sion which, like all others, may be good or bad, as one is its master or its slave. It may even be thought that there is no pa.s.sion which may be more than this one, pregnant with good or with evil.

Julia seemed splendidly gifted; but her ardent and precocious disposition had been developed, thanks to the paternal education, as in the primeval forest, wholly at random. She was small in person, dark and pale, lithe and slender, with large blue eyes full of fire, unruly black hair, and superbly arched eyebrows. Her habitual air was reserved and haughty; nevertheless she laid aside, at home, these majestic appearances to frolic on the carpet. She played games of her own invention. She translated her history lessons into little dramas interspersed with speeches to the people, dialogues, music, and particularly chariot-races. In spite of her serious countenance, she could be very funny at times, and made cruel fun of those she did not like.

She manifested for her father a pa.s.sionate predilection, singularly mitigated by the sentiments of tender pity which her mother's unhappiness inspired in her youthful heart. She saw her weep often; she would then throw herself upon the floor, curled up at her feet, and there remain for hours, motionless and dumb, looking at her with moist eyes, and drinking from time to time a tear from her cheek.

She had apparently caught, as many children do, some echoes of the domestic woes. Doubtless her quick intellect appreciated her father's wrong-doings; but her father--that handsome gentleman, so witty, generous, and wild--she worshiped him; she was proud to be his daughter; she palpitated with joy when he clasped her to his heart. She could neither judge him nor blame him; he was a superior being. She contented herself with pitying and consoling, as best she could, that gentle and charming creature who was her mother, and who suffered.

Within the circle of Madame de Trecoeur's acquaintances, Julia simply pa.s.sed for a little plague. The dear madames, as she called them, who formed the ornament of her mother's Thursdays, related with bitterness to each other the scenes of comical imitation with which the child followed their entrance and their departure. The men considered themselves fortunate when they did not carry off a bit of paper or silk on the back of their coats. All this amused Monsieur de Trecoeur extremely. When his daughter performed with half a dozen chairs some of those Olympian races that knocked every piano in the neighborhood out of tune--

"Julia!" he would exclaim, "you don't make noise enough. Smash a vase."

And a vase she did smash; whereupon her father kissed her with enthusiasm.

This method of education a.s.sumed a graver character as the child grew older. Her father's affection became shaded with a species of gallantry.

He took her with him to the Bois, to the races, to the theater. She had not a fancy that he did not antic.i.p.ate and gratify. At thirteen years of age, she had her horse, her groom, and a carriage bearing her monogram.

Already ill, and having perhaps a presentiment of his death, the unfortunate man overwhelmed that beloved daughter with the tokens of his baleful affection. He was thus blunting all her tastes by too precocious satiety, as if he had intended to leave her no taste save for the forbidden fruit.

Julia wept over him with furious transports, and preserved for his memory a fervid worship. She had a private room which she filled with the portraits of her father and with a thousand personal souvenirs, around which she kept up flowers.

Madame de Trecoeur, like the greater number of young girls who marry their cousins, had married very young. She was left a widow at twenty-eight, and her mother, the Baroness de Pers, who was still living, and who was even of the liveliest, was not long in suggesting discreetly to her the propriety of a second marriage. After having exhausted the practical and, in fact, quite sensible reasons that seemed to urge that course, the baroness then came down to the sentimental reasons:

"In good faith, my poor child," she said, "you have not had, up too this time, your just share of happiness in this world. I would not speak ill of your husband, since he is dead; but, _entre nous_, he was a horrid brute.

Mon Dieu! charming at times, I grant you,--since I have been caught myself--like all worthless scamps! but in fact, beastly, beastly! Well, certainly, I shall not undertake to say that marriage is ever a state of perfect bliss; nevertheless it is the best thing that has been imagined up to this time, to enjoy life decently among respectable people. You are in the flower of your age--you are quite good-looking, quite--and, by the way, it will do you no harm to wear your skirts a little higher up behind, with a proper sort of bustle; for you don't even know what they wear now, my poor pet. Here, look! It's horrible, I know; but what can we do? we must not attract attention. In short, what I meant to tell you is that you still have all that is necessary, and even more than is necessary, to fix a husband--if indeed there are any that can be fixed, which I hope is the case--otherwise, we should have to despair wholly of Providence, if it did not have some compensation in store for us after all our trials. It is already a manifest sign of its kindness that you should have recovered your _embonpoint_, my darling! Kiss your mother. Come, now, when is our pretty little woman going to be married?"

There was no maternal exaggeration whatever in the compliments which the baroness was addressing to Clotilde. All Paris looked upon her with the same eyes as her mother. She had never been so attractive as now, and she had always been infinitely so. Her person, reposed in the peace of her mourning, had then the bright l.u.s.tre of a fine fruit, ripe and fresh. Her black eyes full of timid tenderness, her pure brow crowned with splendid and life-like braids, her shoulders of rosy marble, her particular grace of a young matron, at once handsome, loving, and chaste--all that, joined to a spotless reputation and to sixty thousand francs a year, could not fail to bring forward more than one pretender. And indeed they sprang up in legions. Reason, and public opinion itself, which had done full justice to her husband and to herself, were both urging her to a second wedding.

Her own private feelings, whatever might be their natural delicacy, did not seem likely to prove an obstacle, for there was nothing in her heart that was not true. She had been faithful to her husband, she had shed sincere and bitter tears over that wretched companion of her youth; but he had exhausted and worn out her affection, and without ever joining her mother in her posthumous recriminations against Monsieur de Trecoeur, she felt that she had no further duty to fulfill toward him but that of prayer.

She had, however, been for many months a widow, and she still continued to oppose to the solicitations of the baroness, a resistance of which the latter sought in vain to ascertain the mysterious cause. One day she fancied she had discovered it.

"Confess the truth," she said to her; "you are afraid to cause some annoyance to Julia. Now, if that is so, my dear daughter, it is pure folly. You cannot have any serious scruple on that score. Julia will be very rich in her own right, and will have no need of your fortune. She will herself marry in three or four years (much pleasure do I wish her husband, by the way!); and see a little in what a nice situation you will find yourself then! But, mon Dieu! are we never going to be done with them? After the father, here is the daughter now! Eh! mon Dieu! let her erect chapels with her father's portraits and spurs as much as she likes--that's her business; I am certainly not the one to enter into compet.i.tion with her. But she must at least allow us to live in peace!

What! You could not dispose of your person without her leave! Then if you are her slave, my dear child, show me the door at once! You could not do anything more agreeable to her for she cannot bear the sight of me, your daughter! And then, after all, in all candor, what possible objection can she have to your getting married again? A step-father is not a step-mother; it's quite another thing. Eh! mon Dieu! her step-father will be charming to her--all men will be charming to her; I predict her that; she may feel easy about it! Now, will you admit that it is the true cause of your hesitation?"

"I a.s.sure you that it is not, mother," said Clotilde.

"I a.s.sure you that it is, my daughter. Well, come; would you like me to speak to Julia, to try and reason with her? I would prefer giving her a good whipping; however--!"

"Poor, dear mother," rejoined Clotilde, "must I then tell you everything?"

She came to kneel down in front of the baroness.

"By all means, daughter; tell me everything, but don't make me cry, I beg of you! Is what you have to tell very sad?"

"Not very gay."

"Mon Dieu! But no matter; go on."

"In the first place, mother, I must confess that I would personally feel no scruple in marrying again--"

"I should think not! That would be carrying it just a little too far!"

"As to Julia--whom I adore, who loves me sincerely, and who loves you very much too, whatever you may say--"

"Satisfied of the contrary," said the baroness. "But no matter; proceed."

"As to Julia, I have more confidence than you have in her good sense and in her good heart; notwithstanding the exalted affection she has preserved for her father, I am sure that she would understand, that she would respect my determination, and that she would not love me one whit the less, especially if her step-father did not happen to be personally objectionable to her; for you are aware of the extreme violence of her sympathies and of her antipathies--"

"I am aware of it!" said the baroness, bitterly. "Well, you must give her a list of your gentlemen friends, the dear little thing, and she will pick out her own choice for you."

"There is no need of that, good mother," said Clotilde. "The choice has already been made by the mainly interested party, and I am certain that it would not be disagreeable to Julia."

"Well, then, my darling, everything is for the best."

"Alas! no. I am going to tell you something that covers me with confusion.

Among all the men we know, the only one who--the only one I like, in fact, is also the only one who has never been in love with me."

"He must be a savage, then! he cannot but be a savage. But who is he?"

"I have told you, dear mother, the only one of our friends who is not in love with me--"

"Bah! who is that? Your cousin Pierre?"

"No, but you are not--"

"Monsieur de Lucan!" exclaimed the baroness. "It could not fail to be so!

The very flower of the flock! Mon Dieu, my darling, how very similar our tastes are, both of us! He is charming, your Lucan, he is charming. Kiss me, dear--don't look any farther, don't look any farther; he is positively just the man for us."

"But, mother, since he does not want me!"