She took my head between her two beautiful hands, and exclaimed:
"Ah, I was right! I knew quite well that you were not one of those reprobates. You are going to save me, aren't you? Thank God! How Ithank you, O God! Must we jump from the window? Oh, I am not afraid;come--come!"
I seemed as if awakened from a dream, and, I confess, the awakening was not a little painful.
"What does this mean?" I asked, as I rose to my feet. "Are you still jesting with me? Do you not know where you are? Do you think that I am a child?""I know that I am at Roche-Mauprat," she replied, turning pale again, "and that I shall be outraged and assassinated in a couple of hours, if meanwhile I do not succeed in inspiring you with some pity. But Ishall succeed," she cried, falling at my feet in her turn; "you are not one of those men. You are too young to be a monster like them. Icould see from your eyes that you pitied me. You will help me to escape, won't you, won't you, my dear heart?"She took my hands and kissed them frenziedly, in the hope of moving me. I listened and looked at her with a sullen stupidity scarcely calculated to reassure her. My heart was naturally but little accessible to feelings of generosity and compassion, and at this moment a passion stronger than all the rest was keeping down the impulse she had striven to arouse. I devoured her with my eyes, and made no effort to understand her words. I only wished to discover whether I was pleasing to her, or whether she was trying to make use of me to effect her escape.
"I see that you are afraid," I said. "You are wrong to be afraid of me. I shall certainly not do you any harm. You are too pretty for me to think of anything but of caressing you.""Yes; but your uncles will kill me," she cried; "you know they will.
Surely you would not have me killed? Since you love me, save me; Iwill love you afterwards."
"Oh, yes; afterwards, afterwards," I answered, laughing with a silly, unbelieving air; "after you have had me hanged by those gendarmes to whom I have just given such a drubbing. Come, now; prove that you love me at once; I will save you afterwards. You see, I can talk about 'afterwards' too."I pursued her round the room. Though she fled from me, she gave no signs of anger, and still appealed to me with soft words. In me the poor girl was husbanding her one hope, and was fearful of losing it.
Ah, if I had only been able to realize what such a woman as she was, and what my own position meant! But I was unable then. I had but one fixed idea--the idea which a wolf may have on a like occasion.
At last, as my only answer to all her entreaties was, "Do you love me, or are you fooling me?" she saw what a brute she had to deal with, and, making up her mind accordingly, she came towards me, threw her arms round my neck, hid her face in my bosom, and let me kiss her hair. Then she put me gently from her, saying:
"Ah, mon Dieu! don't you see how I love you--how I could not help loving you from the very first moment I saw you? But don't you understand that I hate your uncles, and that I would be yours alone?""Yes," I replied, obstinately, "because you say to yourself: 'This is a booby whom I shall persuade to do anything I wish, by telling him that I love him; he will believe it, and I will take him away to be hanged.' Come; there is only one word which will serve if you love me."She looked at me with an agonized air. I sought to press my lips to hers whenever her head was not turned away. I held her hands in mine.
She was powerless now to do more than delay the hour of her defeat.
Suddenly the colour rushed back to the pale face; she began to smile;and with an expression of angelic coquetry, she asked:
"And you--do you love me?"
From this moment the victory was hers. I no longer had power to will what I wished. The lynx in me was subdued; the man rose in its place;and I believe that my voice had a human ring, as I cried for the first time in my life:
"Yes, I love you! Yes, I love you!"
"Well, then," she said, distractedly, and in a caressing tone, "let us love each other and escape together.""Yes, let us escape," I answered. "I loathe this house, and I loathe my uncles. I have long wanted to escape. And yet I shall only be hanged, you know.""They won't hang you," she rejoined with a laugh; "my betrothed is a lieutenant-general.""Your betrothed!" I cried, in a fresh fit of jealousy more violent than the first. "You are going to be married?""And why not?" she replied, watching me attentively.
I turned pale and clinched my teeth.
"In that case, . . ." I said, trying to carry her off in my arms.
"In that case," she answered, giving me a little tap on the cheek, "Isee that you are jealous; but his must be a particular jealousy who at ten o'clock yearns for his mistress, only to hand her over at midnight to eight drunken men who will return her to him on the morrow as foul as the mud on the roads.""Ah, you are right!" I exclaimed. "Go, then; go. I would defend you to the last drop of my blood; but I should be vanquished by numbers, and I should die with the knowledge that you were left to them. How horrible! I shudder to think of it. Come--you must go.""Yes! yes, my angel!" she cried, kissing me passionately on the cheek.
These caresses, the first a woman had given me since my childhood, recalled, I know not how or why, my mother's last kiss, and, instead of pleasure, caused me profound sadness. I felt my eyes filling with tears. Noticing this, she kissed my tears, repeating the while:
"Save me! Save me!"
"And your marriage?" I asked. "Oh! listen. Swear that you will not marry before I die. You will not have to wait long; for my uncles administer sound justice and swift, as they say.""You are not going to follow me, then?" she asked.
"Follow you? No; it is as well to be hanged here for helping you to escape as to be hanged yonder for being a bandit. Here, at least, Iavoid a twofold shame: I shall not be accounted an informer, and shall not be hanged in a public place.""I will not leave you here," she cried, "though I die myself. Fly with me. You run no risk, believe me. Before God, I declare you are safe.
