Part 3 (1/2)
Thaddeus went to his own room to dress with a joyful heart, though shaken by an inward dread. He went down at the last moment and behaved through dinner as he had done on the first occasion, that is, like a soldier fit only for his duties as a steward. But this time Clementine was not his dupe; his glance had enlightened her. The Marquis de Ronquerolles, one of the ablest diplomates after Talleyrand, who had served with de Marsay during his short ministry, had been informed by his niece of the real worth and character of Comte Paz, and knew how modestly he made himself the steward of his friend Laginski.
”And why is this the first time I have the pleasure of seeing Comte Paz?” asked the marquis.
”Because he is so shy and retiring,” replied Clementine with a look at Paz telling him to change his behavior.
Alas! that we should have to avow it, at the risk of rendering the captain less interesting, but Paz, though superior to his friend Adam, was not a man of parts. His apparent superiority was due to his misfortunes. In his lonely and poverty-stricken life in Warsaw he had read and taught himself a good deal; he had compared and meditated. But the gift of original thought which makes a great man he did not possess, and it can never be acquired. Paz, great in heart only, approached in heart to the sublime; but in the sphere of sentiments, being more a man of action than of thought, he kept his thoughts to himself; and they only served therefore to eat his heart out. What, after all, is a thought unexpressed?
After Clementine's little speech, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and his sister exchanged a singular glance, embracing their niece, Comte Adam, and Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place only in France and Italy,--the two regions of the world (all courts excepted) where eyes can say everything. To communicate to the eye the full power of the soul, to give it the value of speech, needs either the pressure of extreme servitude, or complete liberty. Adam, the Marquis du Rouvre, and Clementine did not observe this luminous by-play of the old coquette and the old diplomatist, but Paz, the faithful watchdog, understood its meaning. It was, we must remark, an affair of two seconds; but to describe the tempest it roused in the captain's soul would take far too much s.p.a.ce in this brief history.
”What!” he said to himself, ”do the aunt and uncle think I might be loved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--”
Ideal love and desire clashed with grat.i.tude and friends.h.i.+p, all equally powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would have his day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the story of the Polish insurrection in n.o.ble words, being questioned about it by the diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine hanging upon his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting that Adam too, after sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been an exile. At nine o'clock, after coffee had been served, Madame de Serizy kissed her niece on the forehead, pressed her hand, and went away, taking Adam with her and leaving the Marquis de Ronquerolles and the Marquis du Rouvre, who soon followed. Paz and Clementine were alone together.
”I will leave you now, madame,” said Thaddeus. ”You will of course rejoin them at the Opera?”
”No,” she answered, ”I don't like dancing, and they give an odious ballet to-night 'La Revolte au Serail.'”
There was a moment's silence.
”Two years ago Adam would not have gone to the Opera without me,” said Clementine, not looking at Paz.
”He loves you madly,” replied Thaddeus.
”Yes, and because he loves me madly he is all the more likely not to love me to-morrow,” said the countess.
”How inexplicable Parisian women are!” exclaimed Thaddeus. ”When they are loved to madness they want to be loved reasonably: and when they are loved reasonably they reproach a man for not loving them at all.”
”And they are quite right. Thaddeus,” she went on, smiling, ”I know Adam well; I am not angry with him; he is volatile and above all grand seigneur. He will always be content to have me as his wife and he will never oppose any of my tastes, but--”
”Where is the marriage in which there are no 'buts'?” said Thaddeus, gently, trying to give another direction to Clementine's mind.
The least presuming of men might well have had the thought which came near rendering this poor lover beside himself; it was this: ”If I do not tell her now that I love her I am a fool,” he kept saying to himself.
Neither spoke; and there came between the pair one of those deep silences that are crowded with thoughts. The countess examined Paz covertly, and Paz observed her in a mirror. Buried in an armchair like a man digesting his dinner, the image of a husband or an indifferent old man, Paz crossed his hands upon his stomach and twirled his thumbs mechanically, looking stupidly at them.
”Why don't you tell me something good of Adam?” cried Clementine suddenly. ”Tell me that he is not volatile, you who know him so well.”
The cry was fine.
”Now is the time,” thought poor Paz, ”to put an insurmountable barrier between us. Tell you good of Adam?” he said aloud. ”I love him; you would not believe me; and I am incapable of telling you harm. My position is very difficult between you.”
Clementine lowered her head and looked down at the tips of his varnished boots.
”You Northern men have nothing but physical courage,” she said complainingly; ”you have no constancy in your opinions.”
”How will you amuse yourself alone, madame?” said Paz, a.s.suming a careless air.
”Are not you going to keep me company?”
”Excuse me for leaving you.”