The White House Part 50

Isaure, having placed the food upon a table which she moved to her guest's side, said to him pleasantly:

"There, monsieur, is all that I have to offer you, but I do it gladly."

"There is much more than I need, and it is a most sumptuous repast, compared with those which I have had for some time past," said the stranger, seating himself at the table. "But I warn you, my child, that I shall not be able to pay you for what I consume in your house."

"Pay me, monsieur! Oh! I am not in the habit of asking pay for such trifling services as I can render. Is not one too fortunate to be able to be of use sometimes to one's fellow creatures?"

"That is a most beautiful reflection, my child!" said the stranger ironically; "but I doubt whether your fellow creatures would do so much for you, if the opportunity should offer! You are still young; it will be well for you to learn thus early never to rely upon the grat.i.tude of those whom you have obliged."

"I do not need their grat.i.tude to take pleasure in doing good; my reward is in my heart." As she said this, Isaure raised her blue eyes with a touching expression of sincerity, and her whole face seemed lovelier than ever. The stranger gazed at her constantly while he ate.

"Young woman," said he, "it was not among your goats and your dull-witted mountaineers that you learned to express yourself thus."

Isaure blushed and faltered:

"What! do you think, monsieur, that the people in our mountains are not so hospitable as I am?"

"Hospitable! yes, indeed! But there are so many ways of being hospitable; and I see by your manner, by your speech--yes, yes, I know what I am talking about, and hereafter I think it would be difficult to deceive me.--Come, sit down here, and keep me company. I don't frighten you, I trust?"

"No, monsieur," replied the girl timidly, as she seated herself a few steps from the table, taking care to keep Vaillant beside her.

After eating and drinking for some time, the stranger rested his elbows on the table, placed his head on his hands, and, gazing steadfastly at Isaure, said to her:

"People talk much about you in the neighborhood."

"About me, monsieur?"

"Yes, about you. The mountaineers declare that you are a witch."

"A witch?"

"Yes. That makes you smile and you are right; these idiots deserve nothing but pity; and yet in the old days such a reputation might have been most disastrous to you. In the days when people did not take the trouble to reason, they burned those who were accused of witchcraft; that was the quickest way. The goodwomen of those times did not doubt that witches rode to their revels on broomsticks; and there were people interested in having three-fourths of the human race become as foolish as the goodwomen. We have got beyond all that, and you will not be burned. But I begin to think that the peasants may well have been surprised at the difference between you and themselves, although I do not imagine that it is due to any but a perfectly natural cause. You will say that this is none of my business, I suppose; and that if you express yourself in better language than the mountaineers, it is, presumably, because your education was looked after. That is all very well; but you must agree, my child, that it was absurd to fit you for something better than tending goats, and then leave you in these mountains to follow that trade."

Isaure made no reply; she lowered her eyes, feeling intimidated by the tone of the stranger, whose glance, fixed constantly upon her, caused her an embarra.s.sment which she could not overcome.

"You are pretty, my child!" continued the vagabond; "very pretty, on my word, and much more so than I thought before I had such a good look at you. But this beauty will lead you into adventures. Men adore pretty women, or at least, if they do not really adore them, they pay a.s.siduous court to them. For my part, that seems to me no more than right; it is more natural to offer incense to a lovely woman than to adore oxen, stags, crocodiles, monkeys, cats, and even onions, as used to be done by the Egyptians, the most ancient of nations, and yet, as you see, not the most sensible for that reason. So you will be adored.--But what am I saying! it has begun already, no doubt. You blus.h.!.+ deuce take it!

there's nothing out of the common course in that."

"I do not know what you mean, monsieur," rejoined Isaure with a sincerity which would have convinced any other than the man who sat opposite her.

"You do not know!" muttered the stranger, shrugging his shoulders. "That is the way they all talk! they never do know! they are always innocent and pure! And when we have proofs of their treachery, when we place those proofs under their eyes, they still answer with an air of the utmost good faith, that they do not know how it happened!"

A bitter smile played about the stranger's lips; his eyebrows contracted, and he seemed engrossed by painful memories. Isaure, trembling violently, moved her chair away; her eyes expressed the terror which had taken possession of her. Soon the stranger glanced at her, and divined her fear; whereupon he resumed his customary careless air and said to her:

"Why do you move away from me like that?"

"Why,--monsieur,--I thought that you were angry."

"Angry? not at all! With whom do you suppose that I am angry, for heaven's sake?--Let us come back to you, my child; come, move your chair nearer and do not tremble so."

Isaure complied, as if against her will, with her guest's request; the familiar tone in which he addressed her would have offended her if he had not seemed so dest.i.tute; but she believed him to be unfortunate, and she attributed to compa.s.sion the submission which she displayed.

"I told you that you were pretty; it certainly was not that which made you move your chair away. Others must have told you so before; and among others, the two young men who have called upon you every morning for some time past."

Isaure blushed hotly as she stammered:

"The two young men? Ah! you know--do you know them, monsieur?"

"Yes, I know them very well now. But do you know them? do you know who they are?"

"I know that their names are Edouard and Alfred, that they are staying at the Chateau of La Roche-Noire, and that they are pleasant and very courteous to me."

"And is that all that you know?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"You lie, girl; you know very well that both of them are in love with you."

Isaure tried to raise her eyes, but the stranger's expression forced her to lower them again at once, and she replied in a trembling voice:

"Those gentlemen may have told me that in jest; I should have done wrong to believe them."

"Morbleu! in jest or otherwise, as if there were not a thousand ways of making themselves understood! The silliest woman sees when she makes an impression; all the more she who, like you, is neither a fool nor affected. Oh! my dear, believe that I know women better than you know your goats and your hens! I have had my day; it was short, it is true, but I made the most of it! They found me as agreeable, as fascinating, as you find Alfred and Edouard, but I rushed my intrigues more rapidly than these young men do. How many beauties seduced, and then abandoned that I might seduce others! How well I could a.s.sume all tones, affect all the varying shades of sentiment, to ensnare my victims! I would feign love, grief, despair; I would shed tears; but in reality my heart was dry, and I laughed in my sleeve at the sighs which moved those women to compa.s.sion. Ah! yes, I may say that I have had a very brilliant flight--it's a pity that it ended so badly!"

Isaure listened to the stranger with amazement, not daring to interrupt him; he sat for some moments as if absorbed by the memories which had awakened in his mind; then he let his head droop upon his breast, and continued:

"Yes! all that has vanished! Love, friends.h.i.+p, wealth! I shall never know any of them more; I am alone, dest.i.tute, and I have not a single friend!"

The stranger's tone became slow and melancholy as he uttered these words. Isaure felt deeply moved; she rose, walked toward the stranger, who no longer terrified her, and said to him with touching concern:

"Have you been very unfortunate?"

The stranger raised his head, gazed earnestly at her, and exclaimed:

"Why, this is most extraordinary! I had not noticed it before so strongly as I do now!"

"Noticed what, monsieur?" said Isaure.

"Nothing; oh! nothing. It is the effect of my recollections, no doubt.

What in the deuce set me to thinking about all that? No, henceforth there is but a single sentiment that can revive my heart; but I feel that that sentiment may still afford me most delicious enjoyment."

Once more the stranger's eyes gleamed; they seemed alight with savage joy. Isaure moved away from him, and quickly resumed her former seat, while her hand rested on Vaillant's neck.

"My child," continued the vagabond, after drinking a gla.s.s of wine, "I was saying that the two young men who come to see you so often are in love with you. There is no harm in that, but you must realize that it is not to see this valley or to gaze into the lovely eyes of your goats, that these two young men from Paris rise so early in the morning! But I have reasons of my own for being curious to know which of the two you prefer--unless indeed you love them both, for such things have been seen! But no, no; I think that you are not sufficiently advanced for that. Come, speak, answer."

Isaure rose with dignity; she no longer trembled, for she felt offended; and looking fixedly at the man whom she had received as her guest, she answered:

"Your questions surprise me, monsieur! Who, pray, has employed you to ask them?"