he meantime, retain, for my sake, that ground-work of
melancholy upon which you weave your own gentle mirth; for, thank God! you
are not a pedant; you can live, you can laugh, and even laugh aloud; but
thy soul is sad unto death, and that is only why I love unto death thy
fraternal soul.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MARQUISE INTERCEDES.

_1st October._

Paul, there is something going on here that does not please me. I would
like to have your advice; send it as soon as possible.

On Thursday morning, after finishing my letter, I went down to give it to
the messenger, who leaves quite early; then, as it only wanted a few
minutes of the breakfast-hour, I walked into the drawing-room, which was
still empty. I was quietly looking over a review by the fireside, when the
door was suddenly flung open; I heard the crushing and rustling of a silk
dress too broad to get easily through an aperture three feet wide, and I
saw the Little Countess appear: she had spent the night at the chateau.

If you remember the unfortunate conversation in which I had become
entangled, the previous evening, and which Madame de Palme had overheard
from beginning to end, you will readily understand that this lady was the
last person in the world with whom it might prove pleasant to find myself
alone that morning.

I rose and I addressed to her a deep courtsey; she replied with a nod,
which, though slight, was still more than I deserved from her. The first
steps she took in the parlor after she had seen me were stamped with
hesitation and a sort of wavering; it was like the action of a partridge
lightly hit on the wing and somewhat stunned by the shot. Would she go to
the piano, to the window, to the right or to the left, or opposite? It was
clear that she did not know herself; but indecision is not the weak point
of her disposition; she soon made up her mind, and crossing the immense
drawing room with very firm step, she came in the direction of the
chimney, that is, toward my immediate domain.

Standing in front of my arm-chair with my review in my hand, I was
awaiting the event with an apparent gravity that concealed but
imperfectly, I fear, a rather powerful inward anxiety. I had indeed every
reason to apprehend an explanation and a scene. In every circumstance of
this kind, the natural feelings of our heart and the refinement which
education and the habits of society add to them, the absolute freedom of
the attack and the narrow limits allow