One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ Eugenie. The moment after, however, she started up, exclaiming eagerly, "But mistake me not! mistake me not! I have not loved unsought; I have not called upon my head the well-deserved shame of being despised for courting him who loved me not. No, Eugenie, no! although the blood that flows in these veins may be all fire, yet in my heart there is a well of icy pride--at least, so he has often called it--which would cool the warm current of my love--ay, till it froze in death!--ere the name I bear should be stained even by such a pitiful weakness as that. No! he sought me, he courted me, he lived at my feet, till the proud heart was won. Yes, Eugenie, he lived at my feet, he seemed to feed upon my smiles, till, at length, ambition and interest opened wider views, and vanity was piqued to think that Eugenie de Menancourt could be dull to such high merits as his own----"

      "If ambition and interest swayed him," said Eugenie;--but her friend interrupted her ere she could finish. "Hear me out!" she cried, "hear me out, Eugenie! Ambition and interest had much to do therewith. When I and my young brother first sought this court to find protection against the injustice of my father's brother, I possessed little but a small inheritance in France, the dowry of my mother. This he well knew; and though, if there be any truth on earth, he loved me, yet, with men, Eugenie, there are passions that make even love subservient--ambition, interest, vanity, Eugenie, are men's gods!"

      "But is it possible, Beatrice," cried Mademoiselle de Menancourt, "that, thinking thus of all men, and of him in particular, you can either esteem or love him, or any of his race?"

      "Oh, yes, Eugenie! oh, yes!" she replied. "Love is a tyrant--not a slave: we cannot bind him to the chariot wheels of reason; we cannot make him bow his neck beneath the yoke of judgment. On the contrary, we can but yield and obey. There is but one power on earth that can restrain him, Eugenie--Virtue! but everything else is vain. And, oh! how many ways have we of deceiving ourselves! The sun will cease to rise, Eugenie--summer and winter, night and day, forget their course, ere love, in the heart of woman, wants a wile to cheat her belief to what she wishes. Even now, Eugenie, even now, I believe and hope; and I fancy often that, though misled by things whose emptiness he will soon discover, the time will come when Love will re-assert his empire in a heart that is naturally noble. It may be all in vain!" she added, with a deep sigh; "it may be all in vain! yet, who would willingly put out the last faint, lingering flame that flickers on Hope's altar?"

      "Not I!" said Eugenie, echoing her friend's sigh; "not I, indeed!--Would that he were worthy of you, Beatrice! Would that he were worthy of you!" she added, after a momentary pause; during which, perhaps, her mind was struggling back to the real subject of their conversation from some path of association, into which it had been led by her companion's last words. "Would that he were worthy of you! but if his fickle and wayward nature could never be endured by me, who can bear much, how much less would it suit you, Beatrice, who, I am afraid, are calculated to bear but little!"

      "You know not how much I have already borne, Eugenie," replied Beatrice; "you know not how much love can bear: though, yes, perhaps you do," she added, in a lighter tone; "at least, there are those who know well how much--how very much--they could bear for love of Eugenie de Menancourt."

      The warm blood spread red and glowing over Eugenie's fair face. "I know not whom you mean, Beatrice," she said, gravely: "I know none that love me; and few that are capable of loving at all--if you speak of men."

      "Nay, ask me not his name!" said Beatrice, the gaiety of her tone increasing, as she marked, or thought she marked, a greater degree of confusion in her friend's countenance than the subject would have produced in other persons brought up regularly in the sweet and pleasant pastime of deceit. "Nay, ask me not his name! I am no maker of fair matches, nor half so politic, as this world goes, to endeavour to marry my friend to the first person that presents himself, solely to rid myself of the presence of her beauty."

      "Nay, but dear Beatrice," replied Mademoiselle de Menancourt, "I know no one who has even seen that beauty, if so it must be called, for many a month: so indeed you are mistaken."

      "Nay, nay, not so," answered Beatrice, smiling; "a few hours, a few minutes, a single instant, are enough, you know, Eugenie: and for the rest, indeed I am not mistaken. I would stake my life, from what I have seen--from signs infallible--that you are loved deeply, truly, with all the ardour of a first passion in a young--a very young heart."

      "Pray God, it be not so!" cried Eugenie; "for it were but unhappiness to himself and to me."

      "Are you so cold, then, Eugenie, that you cannot love?" asked Beatrice, with a smile; "or is that sweet heart occupied already by some one who fills it all?"

      Eugenie smiled too, and shook her head; but there was once more a deep blush spread over her face; and though it might be but the generous flush of native modesty, Beatrice read in it a contradiction of her words, as she replied, "No, no, not so, indeed! Perhaps I may be cold; as yet I cannot tell, for no one has ever yet spoken to me of love whose love I could return. But, even could I do so, Beatrice, would it not be grief to both, as here I remain in the hands of others, unable to dispose of myself but as they please?"

      "Out upon it, Eugenie!" cried Beatrice; "'tis your own fault if you are not your own mistress in an hour. Never was there a time in France when woman--the universal slave--was half so free."

      "But what would you have me do?" demanded Eugenie. "With a thousand eyes constantly upon me, I see not how I could obtain more freedom, or dispose of myself, were I so inclined."

      "As easy as sit here and sew," cried Beatrice. "Here is the King claims the disposal of your hand, and the League claims it too; and, between them both, you can give it to whom you will. Fly from Paris! Betake yourself where you will, but not to the court of Henry; for his tyranny might be greater than even that of the League. Then, make your choice. Give your hand to him you love; and be quite sure, that the party that your good lord shall join will sanction your marriage with all accustomed forms."

      "But if I love no one?" said Eugenie, with a smile.

      "Why then, live in single simplicity till you do," replied Beatrice, with an incredulous shake of the head. "But, at all events, fly from the yoke they now put upon you."

      "Fly, Beatrice?" answered Eugenie; "fly, and how? How am I to fly, with a city beleaguered on all sides; a watchful Argus in the League, with its thousand eyes all round me: having none to guide me, and not knowing where to go;--how am I to fly?"

      "By a thousand ways," answered her friend, laughing at her embarrassment. "Change your dress, in the first place: put on a petticoat of crimson satin embroidered with green, together with a black velvet body and sleeves, cut in the fashion of the Duchess of Valentinois, of blessed memory!--a cloak of straw-coloured silk, a capuche of light blue cloth broidered with gold, a mass of grey hair under a black cap, and a vertugadin of four feet square. Dress yourself thus, and call yourself Madame la Presidente de Noailles; and, by my word, the guards will let you pass all the gates, and thank God to get rid of you! Or, if that does not suit you, take the gown and bonnet of a young advocate," she continued in the same gay tone; "hide those pretty lips and that rounded chin under a false beard from Armandi's; and be very sure the guards would as soon think of stopping you as they would of stopping the prince of darkness, who, after all, is the real governor of this great city. Nothing keeps you here but fear, my Eugenie! Why, I will undertake to go in and out twenty times a day, if I please."

      "Ay, but you have a bolder heart than I have," answered Eugenie de Menancourt; "and I know full well, Beatrice, that a thing which, executed with a good courage, is done with ease, miscarries at the first step when it is attempted by timidity and fear. The very thought of wandering through the gates of Paris alone makes me shrink."

      "But I will go with you, Eugenie," replied Beatrice, "and will answer for success whenever you like to make the attempt."

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