Are they not twice unhappy?"
There was a short pause. Then she rose smiling.
"You little suspected, when you came to Courcelles, that you were to
hear a sermon, did you?"
Gaston felt even further than at first from this extraordinary woman.
Was the charm of that delightful hour due after all to the coquetry of
the mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her wit. He
bowed stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in desperation.
On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a creature
supple and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass through so
many phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The tones
of her voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the little
movements of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes grew
more gracious in memory, more fascinating as he thought of them. The
Vicomtesse's beauty shone out again for him in the darkness; his
reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled anew
by womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. He fell
to wandering musings, in which the most lucid thoughts grow refractory
and flatly contradict each other, and the soul passes through a brief
frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all that lies in the dithyrambic
outpourings of youth when, after a stormy siege, of the most frantic
folly and coolest common-sense, the heart finally yields to the
assault of the latest comer, be it hope, or despair, as some
mysterious power determines.
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