Part 45 (1/2)

”Am I to understand,” said Rameau, coldly, for his amour propre was resentful, ”that the proposals of another have been more fortunate than mine?” And he named the youngest and comeliest of those whom she had rejected. ”Certainly not,” said Isaura.

Rameau rose and went to the window, turning his face from her. In reality he was striving to collect his thoughts and decide on the course it were most prudent for him now to pursue. The fumes of the absinthe which had, despite his previous forebodings, emboldened him to hazard his avowal, had now subsided into the languid reaction which is generally consequent on that treacherous stimulus, a reaction not unfavourable to pa.s.sionless reflection. He knew that if he said he could not conquer his love, he would still cling to hope, and trust to perseverance and time, he should compel Isaura to forbid his visits and break off their familiar intercourse. This would be fatal to the chance of yet winning her, and would also be of serious disadvantage to his more worldly interests. Her literary aid might become essential to the journal on which his fortunes depended; and at all events, in her conversation, in her encouragement, in her sympathy with the pains and joys of his career, he felt a support, a comfort, nay, an inspiration.

For the spontaneous gush of her fresh thoughts and fancies served to recruit his own jaded ideas, and enlarge his own stinted range of invention. No, he could not commit himself to the risk of banishment from Isaura.

And mingled with meaner motives for discretion, there was one of which he was but vaguely conscious, purer and n.o.bler. In the society of this girl, in whom whatever was strong and high in mental organisation became so sweetened into feminine grace by gentleness of temper and kindliness of disposition, Rameau felt himself a better man. The virgin-like dignity with which she moved, so untainted by a breath of scandal, amid salons in which the envy of virtues doubted sought to bring innocence itself into doubt, warmed into a genuine reverence the cynicism of his professed creed.

While with her, while under her chastening influence, he was sensible of a poetry infused within him far more true to the Camoenae than all he had elaborated into verse. In these moments he was ashamed of the vices he had courted as distractions. He imagined that with her all his own, it would be easy to reform.

No; to withdraw wholly from Isaura was to renounce his sole chance of redemption.

While these thoughts, which it takes so long to detail, pa.s.sed rapidly through his brain, he felt a soft touch on his arm, and, turning his face slowly, encountered the tender, compa.s.sionate eyes of Isaura.

”Be consoled, dear friend,” she said, with a smile, half cheering, half mournful. ”Perhaps for all true artists the solitary lot is the best.”

”I will try to think so,” answered Rameau; ”and meanwhile I thank you with a full heart for the sweetness with which you have checked my presumption--the presumption shall not be repeated. Gratefully I accept the friends.h.i.+p you deign to tender me. You bid me forget the words I uttered. Promise in turn that you will forget them--or at least consider them withdrawn. You will receive me still as friend?”

”As friend, surely: yes. Do we not both need friends?” She held out her hand as she spoke; he bent over it, kissed it with respect, and the interview thus closed.

CHAPTER V.

It was late in the evening that day when a man who had the appearance of a decent bourgeois, in the lower grades of that comprehensive cla.s.s, entered one of the streets in the Faubourg Montmartre, tenanted chiefly by artisans. He paused at the open doorway of a tall narrow house, and drew back as he heard footsteps descending a very gloomy staircase.

The light from a gas lamp on the street fell full on the face of the person thus quitting the house--the face of a young and handsome man, dressed with the quiet elegance which betokened one of higher rank or fas.h.i.+on than that neighbourhood was habituated to find among its visitors. The first comer retreated promptly into the shade, and, as by sudden impulse, drew his hat low down over his eyes.

The other man did not, however, observe him, went his way with a quick step along the street, and entered another house some yards distant.

”What can that pious Bourbonite do here?” muttered the first comer. ”Can he be a conspirator? Diable! 'tis as dark as Erebus on that staircase.”

Taking cautious hold of the banister, the man now ascended the stairs.

On the landing of the first floor there was a gas lamp which threw upward a faint ray that finally died at the third story. But at that third story the man's journey ended; he pulled a bell at the door to the right, and in another moment or so the door was opened by a young woman of twenty-eight or thirty, dressed very simply, but with a certain neatness not often seen in the wives of artisans in the Faubourg Montmartre. Her face, which, though pale and delicate, retained much of the beauty of youth, became clouded as she recognised the visitor; evidently the visit was not welcome to her.

”Monsieur Lebeau again!” she exclaimed, shrinking back.

”At your service, chere dame. The goodman is of course at home? Ah, I catch sight of him,” and sliding by the woman, M. Lebeau pa.s.sed the narrow lobby in which she stood, through the open door conducting into the room in which Armand Monnier was seated, his chin propped on his hand, his elbow resting on a table, looking abstractedly into s.p.a.ce. In a corner of the room two small children were playing languidly with a set of bone tablets, inscribed with the letters of the alphabet. But whatever the children were doing with the alphabet, they were certainly not learning to read from it.

The room was of fair size and height, and by no means barely or shabbily furnished. There was a pretty clock on the mantelpiece. On the wall were hung designs for the decoration of apartments, and shelves on which were ranged a few books.

The window was open, and on the sill were placed flowerpots; you could scent the odour they wafted into the room. Altogether it was an apartment suited to a skilled artisan earning high wages. From the room we are now in, branched on one side a small but commodious kitchen; on the other side, on which the door was screened by a portiere, with a border prettily worked by female hands--some years ago, for it was faded now--was a bedroom, communicating with one of less size in which the children slept. We do not enter those additional rooms, but it may be well here to mention them as indications of the comfortable state of an intelligent skilled artisan of Paris, who thinks he can better that state by some revolution which may ruin his employer.

Monnier started up at the entrance of Lebeau, and his face showed that he did not share the dislike to the visit which that of the female partner of his life had evinced. On the contrary, his smile was cordial, and there was a hearty ring in the voice which cried out--

”I am glad to see you--something to do? Eh!”

”Always ready to work for liberty, mon brave.”

”I hope so: what's in the wind now?”