Part 62 (2/2)

Sylvie raised her head and gently put aside the weak trembling little hands that embraced her.

”Angela, Angela! You must not scorn the gifts of the G.o.ds! No, No!--you will not let me say anything--you forbid me to express my thoughts fully, and I know you are not well enough to hear me yet--but one day you WILL know!--you will hear,--you will even be thankful for all the sorrow you have pa.s.sed through,--and meanwhile, dear, dearest Angela, do not be ungrateful!”

She said the word boldly yet hesitatingly, bending over the couch tenderly, her eyes full of light, and a smile on her lips. And taking up a knot of daffodils she swept their cool blossoms softly across Angela's burning forehead, murmuring--

”Do not be ungrateful!”

”Ungrateful--!” echoed Angela,--and she moved restlessly.

”Yes, darling! Do not say you wish you never had received the great gifts G.o.d has given you. Do not judge of things by Sorrow's measurement only. I repeat--you ARE loved--though not perhaps where you most relied on love. Your father loves you--your uncle loves you--Manuel loves you . . .”

Angela interrupted her with a protesting gesture.

”Yes--I know,” she murmured, ”but--”

”But you think all this love is worthless, as compared with a love that was no love at all?” said Sylvie. ”There! We will not speak about it any more just now,--you are not strong, and you see things in their darkest light. Shall I talk to you about Aubrey?”

”Ah! That is a subject you are never tired of!” said Angela with a faint smile. ”Nor am I.”

”Well, you ought to be,” answered Sylvie gaily, ”for I am too blindly, hopelessly in love to know when to stop! I see nothing else and know nothing else--it is Aubrey, Aubrey all the time. The air, the sunlight, the whole world, seem only an admirable exposition of Aubrey!”

”Then how would you feel if he did not love you any more?” asked Angela.

”But that is not possible!” said Sylvie. ”Aubrey could not change. It is not in him. He is not like our poor friend Fontenelle.”

”Ah! That love of yours was only fancy, Sylvie!”

”We all have our fancies!” answered the pretty Comtesse, looking very earnestly into Angela's eyes. ”We are not always sure that what we first call love is love. But I had much more than a fancy for the Marquis Fontenelle. If he had loved me--as I think he did at the last--I should certainly have married him. But during all the time I knew him he had a way of relegating all women to the same level--servants, actresses, ballet-dancers, and ladies alike,--he would never admit that there is as much difference between one woman and another as between one man and another. And this is a mistake many men make. Fontenelle wished to treat me as Miraudin would have treated his 'leading lady';--he judged that quite sufficient for happiness. Now Aubrey treats me as his comrade,--his friend as well as his love, and that makes our confidence perfect. By the way, he spoke to me a great deal yesterday about the Abbe Vergniaud, and told me all he knew about his son Cyrillon.”

”Ah, the poor Abbe!” said Angela. ”They are angry with him still at the Vatican--angry now with his dead body! But 'Gys Grandit' is not of the Catholic faith, so they can do nothing with him.”

”No. He is what they call a 'free-lance,'” said Sylvie. ”And a wonderful personage he is! I You have seen him?”

A faint colour crept over Angela's pale cheeks.

”Yes. Once. Just once, in Paris, on the day his father publicly acknowledged him. But I wrote to him long before I knew who he realty was.”

”Angela! You wrote to him?”

”Yes. I admired the writings of Gys Grandit--I used to buy all his books as they came out, and study them. I wrote to him--as many people will write to a favourite author--not in my own name of course--to express my admiration, and he answered. And so we corresponded for about two years, not knowing each other's ident.i.ty till that scene in Paris brought us together--”

”How VERY curious,--ve--ry!” said Sylvie, with a little mischievous smile. ”And so you are quite friends?”

”I think so--I believe so--” answered Angela--”but since we met, he has ceased to write to me.”

Sylvie made a mental note of that fact in her own mind, very much to the credit of ”Gys Grandit,” but said nothing further on the subject.

Time was hastening on, and she had to return to the Casa D'Angeli to receive Monsignor Gherardi.

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