nessing conflicts of
passion of a kind so rare in France, and so dramatic. You are very young
to enter such dangerous lists; you interest me; were it not for the
profound disgust I feel for women, I would stay and help you play
this game. It is difficult; you may lose it; you have to do with two
extraordinary women, and you feel too much for one to use the other
judiciously. Beatrix is dogged by nature; Camille has grandeur. Probably
you will be wrecked between those reefs, drawn upon them by the waves of
passion. Beware!"

Calyste's stupefaction on hearing these words enabled Claude to say them
without interruption and leave the young Breton, who remained like a
traveller among the Alps to whom a guide has shown the depth of some
abyss by flinging a stone into it. To hear from the lips of Claude
himself that Camille loved him, at the very moment when he felt that he
loved Beatrix for life, was a weight too heavy for his untried soul
to bear. Goaded by an immense regret which now filled all the past,
overwhelmed with a sight of his position between Beatrix whom he loved
and Camille whom he had ceased to love, the poor boy sat despairing and
undecided, lost in thought. He sought in vain for the reasons which
had made Felicite reject his love and bring Claude Vignon from Paris to
oppose it. Every now and then the voice of Beatrix came fresh and pure
to his ears from the little salon; a savage desire to rush in and carry
her off seized him at such moments. What would become of him? What must
he do? Could he come to Les Touches? If Camille loved him how could he
come there to adore Beatrix? He saw no solution to these difficulties.

Insensibly to him silence now reigned in the house; he heard, but
without noticing, the opening and shutting of doors. Then suddenly
midnight sounded on the clock of the adjoining bedroom, and the voices
of Claude and Camille roused him fully from his torpid contemplation
of the future. Before he could rise and show himself, he heard the
following terrible words in the voice of Claude Vignon.

"You came to Paris last year desperately in love with Calyste," Claude
was saying to Felicite, "but you were horrified at the thought of the
consequences of such a passion at your age; it would lead you to a gulf,
to hell, to suicide perhaps. Love cannot exist unless it thinks itself
eternal, and you saw not far before you a horrible parting; old age you
knew would end the glorious poem soon. You thought