"She puts nothing in the world," continued Madame de l'Estorade, "before her gratitude to her preserver, whereas her father and I have scarcely shown him any.""But, madame," said Sallenauve, "you have courteously--""Courteously!" interrupted Nais, shaking her pretty head with an air of disapproval; "if any one had saved my daughter, I should be different to him from that.""Nais," said Madame de Camps, sternly, "children should be silent when their opinion is not asked.""What is the matter," said Monsieur de l'Estorade, joining the group.
"Nothing," said Madame de Camps; "only a giddiness Renee had in dancing.""Is it over?"
"Yes, I am quite well again," said Madame de l'Estorade.
"Then come and say good-night to Madame de Rastignac, who is preparing to take leave."In his eagerness to get to the minister's wife, he forgot to give his own wife his arm.Sallenauve was more thoughtful.As they walked together in the wake of her husband, Madame de l'Estorade said,--"I saw you talking for a long time with Monsieur de Rastignac; did he practise his well-known seductions upon you?""Do you think he succeeded?" replied Sallenauve.
"No; but such attempts to capture are always disagreeable, and I beg you to believe that I was not a party to the plot.I am not so violently ministerial as my husband.""Nor I as violently revolutionary as they think.""I trust that these annoying politics, which have already produced a jar between you and Monsieur de l'Estorade, may not disgust you with the idea of being counted among our friends.""That is an honor, madame, for which I can only be grateful.""It is not an honor but a pleasure that I hoped you would find in it,"said Madame de l'Estorade, quickly."I say, with Nais, if I had saved the life of a friend's child, I should cease to be ceremonious with her."So saying, and without listening to his answer, she disengaged her arm quickly from that of Sallenauve, and left him rather astonished at the tone in which she had spoken.
In seeing Madame de l'Estorade so completely docile to the advice, more clever than prudent, perhaps, of Madame de Camps, the reader, we think, can scarcely be surprised.A certain attraction has been evident for some time on the part of the frigid countess not only to the preserver of her daughter, but to the man who under such romantic and singular circumstances had come before her mind.Carefully considered, Madame de l'Estorade is seen to be far from one of those impassible natures which resist all affectionate emotions except those of the family.With a beauty that was partly Spanish, she had eyes which her friend Louise de Chaulieu declared could ripen peaches.Her coldness was not what physicians call congenital; her temperament was an acquired one.Marrying from reason a man whose mental insufficiency is very apparent, she made herself love him out of pity and a sense of protection.Up to the present time, by means of a certain atrophy of heart, she had succeeded, without one failure, in making Monsieur de l'Estorade perfectly happy.With the same instinct, she had exaggerated the maternal sentiment to an almost inconceivable degree, until in that way she had fairly stifled all the other cravings of her nature.It must be said, however, that the success she had had in accomplishing this hard task was due in a great measure to the circumstance of Louise de Chaulieu.To her that dear mistaken one was like the drunken slave whom the Spartans made a living lesson to their children; and between the two friends a sort of tacit wager was established.Louise having taken the side of romantic passion, Renee held firmly to that of superior reason; and in order to win the game, she had maintained a courage of good sense and wisdom which might have cost her far more to practise without this incentive.At the age she had now reached, and with her long habit of self-control, we can understand how, seeing, as she believed, the approach of a love against which she had preached so vehemently, she should instantly set to work to rebuff it; but a man who did not feel that love, while thinking her ideally beautiful, and who possibly loved elsewhere,--a man who had saved her child from death and asked no recompense, who was grave, serious, and preoccupied in an absorbing enterprise,--why should she still continue to think such a man dangerous? Why not grant to him, without further hesitation, the lukewarm sentiment of friendship?
