Part 24

ROSETTE.

It is so hard for one to have anything to one's self in this world! every candle attracts so many moths, every treasure attracts so many thieves!--I love the silent men who carry their ideas to the grave and do not choose to abandon them to the filthy kisses and shameless handling of the vulgar crowd. Those lovers please me best who do not carve their mistress's name on the bark of any tree, who confide it to no echo, and who, while they sleep, are haunted by the fear that they may utter it in a dream. I am one of that number; I have not divulged my thoughts and no one shall know my love.--But it is almost eleven o'clock, my dear Théodore, and I am preventing your taking rest that you must sadly need. When I am obliged to leave you I always have a feeling of oppression at my heart, and it seems to me as if it were the last time I should ever see you. I postpone it as long as I can; but I always have to go at last. Good-night, for I am afraid D'Albert may be looking for me; good-night, my dear friend.

Théodore put his arm around her waist and thus escorted her to the door; there he stopped and followed her a long time with his glance; the corridor was lighted at intervals by small windows with narrow panes, through which the moon shone, making alternate light and dark patches of fantastic shape. At each window Rosette's pure, white form gleamed like a silvery phantom; then it vanished to appear, even more brilliant, a little farther away; at last it disappeared altogether.

Théodore stood for some moments motionless, with folded arms, as if buried in profound meditation; then he passed his hand over his forehead and threw back his hair with a jerk of his head, returned to his room, and went to bed after kissing the brow of the page, who was still asleep.

VII

As soon as the daylight entered Rosette's room, D'Albert made his appearance, with an eagerness that was not usual with him.

"Here you are," said Rosette, "I would say very early, if you could ever arrive early.--To reward you for your gallantry I present you my hand to kiss."

And she drew from beneath the sheet of Flemish linen trimmed with lace the prettiest little hand that was ever seen at the end of a plump, well-shaped arm.

D'Albert kissed it with compunction:--"And the other, little sister, are we not to kiss that too?"

"Mon Dieu, yes! nothing is easier. I am in my Sunday humor to-day; here."--And she extended her other hand with which she tapped him lightly on the lips.--"Am I not the most obliging woman on earth?"

"You are grace itself, and temples of white marble should be erected to you in thickets of myrtle.--Really, I am very much afraid that the same thing will happen to you that happened to Psyche, and that Venus will be jealous of you," said D'Albert, taking the fair one's hands in one of his and raising them together to his lips.

"How you say all that without taking breath! any one would think it was something you had learned by heart," said Rosette, with a delicious little pout.

"No; you deserve to have the phrase turned expressly for you, and you were made to pluck the virgin bloom from compliments," rejoined D'Albert.

"Oho! whatever is the matter with you to-day? are you ill that you are so gallant? I fear you are dying. Do you know that when one's character suddenly changes, and without any apparent reason, it is an evil omen? Now it is a well-known fact, to all the women who have taken the pains to love you, that you are usually as morose as a man can be, and it is no less certain that at this moment you are as charming as a man can be, and inexplicably amiable.--Really, I think you are pale, my poor D'Albert: give me your arm and let me feel your pulse;" and she pushed back his sleeve and counted the pulsations with mock gravity.--"No, you are perfectly well and you haven't the slightest symptom of fever. In that case I must be furiously pretty this morning! Go and find my mirror so that I can see how far your gallantry is justified."

D'Albert brought a small mirror from the toilet-table and placed it on the bed.

"In truth," said Rosette, "you are not altogether wrong. Why don't you write a sonnet on my eyes, Monsieur le Poète. You have no excuse for not doing it. Just see how unfortunate I am! to have eyes like these and a poet like this, and to be left without sonnets just as if I were one-eyed and had a water-carrier for a lover! You don't love me, monsieur; you have never written so much as an acrostic sonnet for me.--And my mouth, what do you think of that? I have kissed you with that mouth and perhaps I will kiss you with it again, my dark-browed beauty; and upon my word, it is a favor that you hardly deserve--I am not speaking of to-day, for to-day you deserve anything;--but, to talk about something beside myself, you are incomparably fresh and comely this morning, you look like a brother of Aurora, and, although it is hardly daylight, you are already arrayed in your best clothes as if for a ball. Can it be that you have designs upon me? and do you meditate dealing an unexpected and final blow to my virtue? do you propose to make a conquest of me? But I forget that you have already done that, and that it's ancient history."

"Don't joke like that, Rosette; you know that I love you."

"Why, that depends. I don't know it; and you?"

"I know it perfectly well, and from such symptoms that, if you should have the kindness to forbid me your door, I should try to prove it to you, and I venture to flatter myself that I should do it most triumphantly."

"Not that way: however anxious I may be to be convinced, my door will remain open; I am too pretty to be shut up behind closed doors; the sun shines for one and all, and my beauty shall be like the sun to-day, if you approve."

"Upon my honor I strongly disapprove; but act as if I approved as strongly. I am your very humble slave, and I lay my wishes at your feet."

"That is as jolly as can be; continue to entertain such sentiments and leave your key in your door to-night."

"Monsieur le Chevalier Théodore de Sérannes,"--said a huge negro, putting his round, good-humored face between the wings of the folding-door, "desires to pay his respects to you and begs that you will deign to receive him."

"Admit Monsieur le Chevalier," said Rosette, pulling the sheet up to her chin.

Théodore went first to Rosette's bed and made a very low and graceful courtesy, which she returned with a friendly nod; then he turned to D'Albert, whom he also saluted in an off-hand, courteous manner.

"What were you talking about?" said Théodore. "It may be that I interrupted an interesting conversation: go on, I beg, and tell me in a few words what it is all about."

"Oh, no!" Rosette replied with a mischievous smile; "we were talking business."

Théodore went first to Rosette's bed and made a very low and graceful courtesy, which she returned with a friendly nod; then he turned to D'Albert, whom he also saluted in an off-hand, courteous manner.]