"Well! where on earth is Jasmin?"

"I was certain that he couldn't keep up with us," said Darena.

"If only he has not fallen and hurt himself!"

"Don't be alarmed; at his age one falls gently. Somebody must have picked him up, and we must hope that this lesson will correct the old fellow a little, for his attachment needs to be toned down."

They rode on, the two gentlemen admiring the confidence of their young companion, who needed only a few lessons in grace and style to become an excellent horseman.

After their ride they returned to Paris, sauntered along the boulevards, visited several cafes, then went to one of the best restaurants in the Palais-Royal, and after dinner to the play. About midnight Cherubin returned home, not having had a single moment during the day to think of the village.

He found that Jasmin was not hurt by his fall, but he admitted to his young master that he should not try again to attend him to the Bois de Boulogne.

The following days were no less thoroughly occupied; Monfreville and Darena were almost constantly with Cherubin; the former sent him teachers in all the social accomplishments; the second talked to him incessantly of the lovely little dancers with whom they had dined.

"Which of the four do you prefer?" he would ask.

And Cherubin would reply, lowering his eyes:

"They are very pretty, all four."

"I understand, you liked them all. That can be arranged, and I will take you to see them whenever you choose; you will be received with open arms."

At that suggestion Cherubin would turn as red as a cherry and stammer:

"Oh, yes! in a few days."

And while his pupil was being taken about and entertained and dazzled, Monsieur Gerondif lay idly in his bed, sat for hours at a time at the table, showed his teeth to Mademoiselle Turlurette, and said to Jasmin every day:

"Above all, worthy Eumaeus, do not forget the orders to the concierge: if anybody from Gagny, even Madame Frimousset, should call and ask to see monsieur le marquis, she must be told that Monsieur Cherubin de Grandvilain is absent, that he is travelling; for if my pupil should see her again, above all if he should see little Louise, although he is beginning to like the city, he might allow himself to be lured away again, and all the fruit of our efforts would be lost! And that would be the greater pity, because, thanks to the advice of his two friends and the lessons I give him, he must necessarily become ere long a most preponderating cavalier."

Jasmin, who always humbled himself before the tutor's learning, did not fail to do exactly what he recommended, saying to himself that it could not be wrong to send the nurse away without allowing her to speak with his master, because a man who educates children must be perfectly familiar with the rules of courtesy.

And the days and weeks and months pa.s.sed in that life of enjoyment, of constant occupation, and of dissipation, which Cherubin led at Paris.

Whenever he spoke of going to the village, his new friends said:

"Yes, to-morrow; you haven't time to-day."

But when Darena proposed to Cherubin to take him to see one of the little ballet dancers whom he thought so attractive, the marquis replied, blushing to his eyes:

"Yes, to-morrow, to-morrow!"

XIV

A CHILD'S LOVE

While Cherubin was enjoying himself in Paris, making merry and thinking of nothing but pleasure, at Gagny his friends were dismal and bored, and shed frequent tears. It is often so in life: the happiness of one is acquired only at the expense of others' misery. Is it not too high a price to pay? If we always reflected upon causes and effects, we should sometimes regret being happy.

On returning from Montfermeil, where, it will be remembered, she was sent by Monsieur Gerondif, Louise, who had discovered that he had had no other object than to get her out of the way, asked anxiously where Cherubin was; and Nicole, weeping bitterly, told her that the youth whom she still delighted to call her fieu had gone to Paris with several gentlemen, and some charming ladies, evidently foreigners, judging from their costumes, who had danced in her house in a style utterly unlike any village dance.

Louise wept a long while; her heart was torn. There was one pang more cruel than all the rest in her suffering; at fourteen and a half a girl may well know what it is to love; and with love jealousy had made its appearance.

"You let him go!" said Louise, sobbing; "but he promised never to leave me; those people must have taken him by force."

"No, my child, Cherubin went away of his own free will, in high spirits, in fact, and almost dancing with those little hussies, who twirled round and round longer than the tops my boys used to spin when they were little."

Louise wept more bitterly still.

"Why did you let those horrid women come into your house?" she cried.

"Oh! I detest them!"

"Bless my soul, child, it was one of the gentlemen who brought 'em; they drank milk just like cats; and then they danced like kids."

"And Cherubin went away with them!--But he'll come back to-morrow, won't he, mother dear?"

"Let us hope so, my child."

But the morrow and several more days pa.s.sed without bringing Cherubin back to the village. Louise was so depressed that Nicole forgot her own grief to comfort her.

"But something must have happened to him!" the girl constantly exclaimed. "Probably they are keeping him in Paris against his will; for, if not, he would have come back. Let's go after him, mother, let's go after him."

Nicole tried to make Louise listen to reason.

"Listen, my dear," she would say, "it's a long, long while since Monsieur Jasmin began to tell me: 'My young master will have to go to Paris some time; he can't pa.s.s his whole life out at nurse! If it was known that he's still with you, I should be scolded.' And a lot of things like that. The fact is, my child, that they usually take children away from a wet-nurse when they begin to talk, unless--unless----"

And the good woman stopped, for she was on the point of saying:

"Unless they do like your mother, and don't take 'em away at all."

Louise had that instinct of the heart which enables its possessor to read one's inmost thoughts; she divined the words that died on Nicole's lips, and she said, sobbing and pressing her hand convulsively:

"n.o.body came for me, I know that. My mother didn't want me, and yet I couldn't have been naughty then--I was too young. And if it hadn't been for you, for your kindness, what would have become of me? Oh! dear Nicole, how can a mother ever abandon her child? I would have loved my mother so dearly, and she didn't want to take me back, or even to kiss me! Oh! she must have died, I am sure, or else she'd have come after me, or at least have come to see me sometimes."

"Yes," said Nicole, kissing Louise, "you are right, my child, your mother must have died and not had time to send for you; perhaps she wasn't able to tell where her child was. Bless my soul! people die so sudden sometimes! That's the way it must have been. But let's not say any more about it; you know, I don't like to get into that subject, for it always makes you sad."

"That is why I so seldom mention it, my dear Nicole, although I think about it almost all the time; but when Cherubin was with me, I used to forget sometimes that I don't know who my parents are. He told me that he would always love me--and now he has abandoned me too."

After this conversation Louise went to the end of the garden, where she could weep at her ease. In vain did Nicole say to her:

"He'll come back, my child, he'll come back!"

Time pa.s.sed and they saw nothing of Cherubin.

At last, yielding to the girl's entreaties, Nicole started with her for Paris one morning; and all the way Louise kept saying: