"Do not let us two play at diplomacy.You have had news of him lately?""You just remind me that I have, through a letter from Mme.De Lorcy.""Mme de Lorcy, my godmother, would do better to meddle with what concerns her.That woman is incorrigible.""Of what would you have her correct herself?""Simply of her mania for making my happiness after her own fashion.Iread in your eyes that Camille has returned to Paris.What is his object?""I know nothing about it.How should I know? I only presume--that is, I suppose----""You do not suppose--you know."
"Not at all.At the same time, since hypothesis is the road which leads to science, a road we /savants/ travel every day, I--"'You know very well," she again interposed, "that I promised him nothing.""Strictly speaking, I admit; but you requested me to tell him that you found him too young.He has laboured conscientiously since then to correct that fault." Then playfully pinching her cheeks, he added:
"You are a great girl for objections.Soon you will be twenty-five years old, and you have refused five eligible offers.Have you taken a vow to remain unmarried?""Ah! you have no mercy," she cried."What! you cannot even spare me on the Albula! You know that, of all subjects of conversation, I have most antipathy for this.""Come, come; you are slandering me now, my child.I spoke to you of Camille as I might have spoken of the King of Prussia; and you rose in arms at once, taking it wholly to yourself."Antoinette was silent for some moments.
"Decidedly, you are very fond of Camille," she presently said.
"Of all the sons-in-law you could propose to me----""But I do not propose any."
"That is precisely what I find fault with.""Very good; since you think so much of him, this Camille, suppose you command me to marry him?""If I were to command, would you obey?"
"Perhaps, just for the curiosity of the thing," she rejoined, laughing.
"Naughty girl, to mock at her father!" said he."If these twenty years I have been in servitude, I can scarcely emancipate myself in a day.
However, since the great king deigns to hold parley with his ministers, I am Pomponne--let us argue.""Ah, well! you know as well as I that I have a real friendship for Camille, as the playmate of my childhood.I remember him when he was ever so small, and he remembers me, too, when I was a tiny creature.
We played hide-and-seek together, and he humoured me in my ten thousand little caprices.Delightful reminiscences these, but unfortunately I think of them too much when I see him.""He has passed two years among the Magyars; two years is a good while.""Bah! he could never possibly have any authority over me.I intend that my husband shall be my government.""So that you may have the pleasure of governing your government?""Besides, I know Camille too well.I could only fall in love with a stranger," said she, heedless of the last sally.
"Was not the Viscount R--- a stranger?"
"At the end of five minutes I knew him by heart.He is precisely like all other second secretaries of legation in the world.You may be sure that there is not a single idea in his head that is really his own.
Even his figure does not belong to himself; it is the /chef-d'oeuvre/of the united efforts of his tailor and his shirt-maker.""According to this, a prime requisite in the man whom you could love is to be poorly clad.""If ever my heart is touched, it will be because I have met a man who is not like all the other men of my acquaintance.After that I will not positively forbid him to have decent clothing."M.Moriaz made a little gesture of impatience, and then set out to regain the chaise, which was some distance in advance.When he had proceeded about twenty steps, he paused, and, turning towards Antoinette, who was engaged in readjusting her hood and rebuttoning her twelve-button gloves, he said:
"I have drawn an odd number in the great lottery of this world.In our day there are no romantic girls; the last remaining one is mine.""That is it; I am a romantic girl!" she cried, tossing her pretty, curly head with an air of defiance; "and if you are wise you will not urge me to marry, for I never shall make any but an ineligible match.""Ah, speak lower!" he exclaimed, casting a hurried glance around him, and adding: "Thank Heaven! there is no one here but the Albula to hear you."M.Moriaz mistook.Had he raised his eyes a little higher he would have discovered, above the rock cornice bordering the highway, a foot-path, and in this foot-path a pedestrian tourist, who had paused beneath a fir-tree.This tourist had set out from Chur in the diligence.At the entrance of the defile, leaving his luggage to continue without him to Saint Moritz, he had alighted, and with his haversack on his back had set forward on foot for Bergun, where he proposed passing the night, as did also M.Moriaz.Of the conversation between Antoinette and her father he had caught only one word.This word, however, sped like an arrow into his ear, and from his ear into the innermost recesses of his brain, where it long quivered.It was a treasure, this word; and he did not cease to meditate upon it, to comment on it, to extract from it all its essence, until he had reached the first houses of Bergun, like a mendicant who has picked up in a dusty road a well-filled purse, and who opens it, closes it, opens it again, counts his prize piece by piece, and adds up its value twenty times over.Our tourist dined at the /table d'hote/; he was so preoccupied that he ate the trout caught in the Albula without suspecting that they possessed a marvellous freshness, an exquisite flavour and delicacy, and yet it is notorious that the trout of the Albula are the first trout of the universe.
