His Excellency the Minister Part 47

"I love that music-hall air!" she said.

He now no longer meditated resuming travel, or quitting Paris.

Mademoiselle Kayser's hold on him grew more certain every day. The suspicion of odd mystery that enveloped this girl intensified his pa.s.sion.

He sometimes asked her what her uncle was doing.

"He? Why, he has obtained, thanks to Monsieur Vaudrey, the decoration of a hydropathic establishment, _Les Thermes des Batignolles_. He has commenced the cartoon for a fresco: _Ma.s.sage Moralizing the People_. We shall see that in his studio."

"Do you know," Marianne continued, "what I would like to see?"

"What, then?"

"Spain, your own country. Where were you born, Rosas?"

"At Toledo. I own the family chateau there."

"With portraits and armor?"

"Yes, with portraits and armor."

"Well, I would like to go to Toledo, to see that chateau. It must be magnificent."

"It is gloomy, simply gloomy. A fortress on a rock. Gray stone, a red rock, scorched by the sun. Huge halls half Moorish in style. Walls as thick as those of a prison. Steel knights, standing with lance in hand as in _Eviradnus_! Old portraits of stern ancestors cramped in their doublets, or d.u.c.h.esses de Rosas, with pale faces, sad countenances, buried in their collars whose _guipures_ have been limned by Velasquez or Claude Coello. Immense cold rooms where the visitors' footfalls echo as over empty tombs. A splendor that savors of the vault. You would die of ennui at the end of two hours and of cold at the end of eight days."

"Die of cold in Spain?"

"There is a cold of the soul," the duke replied with a significant smile. "That I have travelled so much, is probably due to my desire to escape from that place! But you at Toledo, at Fuentecarral,--that is the name of my castle,--a Parisian like you! It would be cruel. As well shut up a humming-bird in a bear-pit. No! thank G.o.d, I have other nooks in Spain that will shelter us, my dear sparrow of the boulevards! Under the Andalusian jasmines, beneath the oleanders of Cordova or Seville, under the fountains whose basins are decorated with azulejos, and in which sultanas bathe, my jasmins could never sufficiently exhale their perfume, my fountains could never murmur harmoniously enough to furnish you a joyous welcome--when you go--if you go--But Toledo! My terrible castle Fuentecarral! It is in vain that I am impenitently romantic, I would not take you there for anything in the world. It would be as if ice fell on your shoulders. Fuentecarral? Ugh!--that smacks of death."

While he spoke, Marianne looked at him with kindling eyes and in thought roamed through those sweet-scented gardens, and she craved to see herself in that tomblike fortress Fuentecarral, pa.s.sing in front of the pale female ancestors of Rosas, aghast at the _froufrou_ of the _Parisian woman_.

Jose thought Marianne's burning glance was an expression of her love.

Ah! how completely the last six months in Paris had riveted him to this woman, who was the mistress of another! One day,--Vaudrey had just left Marianne at the _rond-point_ of the Champs-elysees,--the duke seeing her enter his house, said abruptly to her:

"I was about to write you, Marianne."

"Why, my dear duke?"

"To ask an appointment."

"You are always welcome, my friend, at our little retreat."

He made her sit down, seized both her hands, and looked at her earnestly as he said:

"Swear to me that you have never been Lissac's mistress!"

She did not even quiver, but was as calm as if she had long awaited this question.

She boldly met Jose's glance and said:

"Does one ask such a question of the woman one loves?"

"Suppose that I ask this question of the d.u.c.h.esse de Rosas!" said the Spaniard, with quivering lip.

She became as pale as he.

"I do not understand--" she said.

The duke remained silent for a moment; then his entire soul pa.s.sed into his voice:

"I have no family, Marianne. I am entirely my own master, and I love you. If you swear to me that you have not been Guy's mistress--"

"n.o.body has the right to say that he has even touched my lips," replied Marianne firmly. "Only one man, he who took me, an innocent girl, and left me heart-broken, disgusted, believing I should never again love, before I met you. He is dead."

"I know," said Rosas, "you confided that to me formerly.--A widow save in name, I offer you, yes, I! my name, my love, my whole life--will you take them?"

"Eh! you know perfectly well that I love you!" she exclaimed, as she frantically gave him the burning and penetrating kiss that had never left his lips since the soiree at Sabine's.

"Then, no one--no one?" Jose repeated.

"No one!"

"On honor?"

"On honor!"

"Oh! how I love you!" he said, distractedly, all his pa.s.sion shattering his coldness of manner, as the sun melts the snow. "If you but knew how jealous and crazed I am about you!--I desire you, I adore you, and I condemn myself to remain glacial before you, beneath your glance that fires my blood--I love you, and the recollection of Guy hindered me from telling you that all that is mine belongs to you--I am a ferocious creature, you know, capable of mad outbursts, senseless anger, and unreasoning flight--Yes, I have wished to escape from you again. Well!

no, I remain with you; I love you, I love you!--You shall be my wife, do you hear? My wife!--Ah! what a moment of bliss! I have loved you for years! Have you not seen it, Marianne?"

"I have seen it and I loved you! I also have kept silence! I saw plainly that you believed that I had given myself to another--No, no, I am yours, nothing but yours! All my love, all myself, take it; I have kept it for you; for I hate the past, more than that, I do not know that it exists--It is despised, obliterated, it is nothing! But you, ah! you, you are my life!"

She left Jose's, her youth renewed, haughty, intoxicated with delight.

She walked along alone, in the paths of the Champs-elysees, the rusty leaves falling in showers at the breath of the already cold wind, her heels ringing on the damp asphalt. She marched straight ahead, her thoughts afire from her intoxicating emotions. It seemed that Paris belonged to her.

That evening, she was to go to the theatre. It was arranged that Vaudrey should wait for her at the entrance with a hired carriage and take her to Rue p.r.o.ny. She wrote to him that she could not leave the house. A slight headache. Uncle Kayser undertook to have the letter taken by a commissionaire.

"Unless you would rather have me go to the ministry!"

"Are you mad?" Marianne said.

"That is true, it would be immoral."

She wished to have the evening to herself, quite alone, so that she could let her dreams take flight.

Dreams? Nonsense! On the contrary, it was a dazzling reality: a fortune, a t.i.tle, a positive escape from want and the mire. What a revenge!

"It is enough to drive one mad!"

Sudden fears seized her; the terror of the too successful gambler. What if everything crumbled like a house of cards! She wished that she were several weeks older.