The Lerouge Case, Émile Gaboriau [old books to read TXT] 📗

looks⁠—timid, sweet, obedient. Undeceive yourself, my friend. Despite her innocent air, she is hardy, fierce, and obstinate as the marquis her father, who was worse than an Auvergne mule. Now you are warned. Our conditions are agreed to, are they not? Let us say no more on the subject. I almost wish you to succeed.”

This scene was so present to the magistrate’s mind, that as he sat at home in his armchair, though many months had passed since these events, he still seemed to hear the old lady’s voice, and the word “success” still sounded in his ears.

He departed in triumph from the d’Arlange abode, which he had entered with a heart swelling with anxiety. He walked with his head erect, his chest dilated, and breathing the fresh air with the full strength of his lungs. He was so happy! The sky appeared to him more blue, the sun more brilliant. This grave magistrate felt a mad desire to stop the passersby, to press them in his arms, to cry to them⁠—“Have you heard? The marchioness consents!”

He walked, and the earth seemed to him to give way beneath his footsteps; it was either too small to carry so much happiness, or else he had become so light that he was going to fly away towards the stars.

What castles in the air he built upon what Madame d’Arlange had said to him! He would tender his resignation. He would build on the banks of the Loire, not far from Tours, an enchanting little villa. He already saw it, with its façade to the rising sun, nestling in the midst of flowers, and shaded with wide-spreading trees. He furnished this dwelling in the most luxuriant style. He wished to provide a marvellous casket, worthy the pearl he was about to possess. For he had not a doubt; not a cloud obscured the horizon made radiant by his hopes, no voice at the bottom of his heart raised itself to cry, “Beware!”

From that day, his visits to the marchioness became more frequent. He might almost be said to live at her house. While he preserved his respectful and reserved demeanour towards Claire, he strove assiduously to be something in her life. True love is ingenious. He learnt to overcome his timidity, to speak to the well-beloved of his soul, to encourage her to converse with him, to interest her. He went in quest of all the news, to amuse her. He read all the new books, and brought to her all that were fit for her to read.

Little by little he succeeded, thanks to the most delicate persistence, in taming this shy young girl. He began to perceive that her fear of him had almost disappeared, that she no longer received him with the cold and haughty air which had previously kept him at a distance. He felt that he was insensibly gaining her confidence. She still blushed when she spoke to him; but she no longer hesitated to address the first word. She even ventured at times to ask him a question. If she had heard a play well spoken of and wished to know the subject, M. Daburon would at once go to see it, and commit a complete account of it to writing, which he would send her through the post. At times she entrusted him with trifling commissions, the execution of which he would not have exchanged for the Russian embassy.

Once he ventured to send her a magnificent bouquet. She accepted it with an air of uneasy surprise, but begged him not to repeat the offering.

The tears came to his eyes; he left her presence brokenhearted, and the unhappiest of men. “She does not love me,” thought he, “she will never love me.” But, three days after, as he looked very sad, she begged him to procure her certain flowers, then very much in fashion, which she wished to place on her flower-stand. He sent enough to fill the house from the garret to the cellar. “She will love me,” he whispered to himself in his joy.

These events, so trifling but yet so great, had not interrupted the games of piquet; only the young girl now appeared to interest herself in the play, nearly always taking the magistrate’s side against the marchioness. She did not understand the game very well; but, when the old gambler cheated too openly, she would notice it, and say, laughingly⁠—“She is robbing you, M. Daburon⁠—she is robbing you!” He would willingly have been robbed of his entire fortune, to hear that sweet voice raised on his behalf.

It was summer time. Often in the evening she accepted his arm, and, while the marchioness remained at the window, seated in her armchair, they walked around the lawn, treading lightly upon the paths spread with gravel sifted so fine that the trailing of her light dress effaced the traces of their footsteps. She chatted gaily with him, as with a beloved brother, while he was obliged to do violence to his feelings, to refrain from imprinting a kiss upon the little blonde head, from which the light breeze lifted the curls and scattered them like fleecy clouds. At such moments, he seemed to tread an enchanted path strewn with flowers, at the end of which appeared happiness.

When he attempted to speak of his hopes to the marchioness, she would say: “You know what we agreed upon. Not a word. Already does the voice of conscience reproach me for lending my countenance to such an abomination. To think that I may one day have a granddaughter calling herself Madame Daburon! You must petition the king, my friend, to change your name.”

If instead of intoxicating himself with dreams of happiness, this acute observer had studied the character of his idol, the effect might have been to put him upon his guard. In the meanwhile, he noticed singular alterations in her humour. On certain days, she was gay and careless as a child. Then, for a week, she would remain melancholy and