In the Days of My Youth Part 68

"In order, Mademoiselle, that you may still have it in your power to become the purchaser."

"And yet you wished to possess the book, or you would not have bought it."

"I would not have bought it, Mademoiselle, if I had known that I should disappoint a--a lady by doing so,"

I was on the point of saying, "if I had known that I should disappoint you by so doing," but hesitated, and checked myself in time.

A half-mocking smile flitted across her lips.

"Monsieur is too self-sacrificing," she said. "Had I first bought the book, I should have kept it--being a woman. Reverse the case as you will, and show me any just reason why you should not do the same--being a man?"

"Nay, the merest by-law of courtesy..." I began, hesitatingly.

"Do not think me ungracious, Monsieur," she interrupted, "if I hold that these so-called laws of courtesy are in truth but concessions, for the most part, from the strength of your s.e.x to the weakness of ours."

"_Eh bien_, Mademoiselle--what then?"

"Then, Monsieur, may there not be some women---myself, for instance--who do not care to be treated like children?"

"Pardon, Mademoiselle, but are you stating the case quite fairly? Is it not rather that we desire not to efface the last lingering tradition of the age of chivalry--not to reduce to prose the last faint echoes of that poetry which tempered the sword of the Crusader and inspired the song of the Trouvere?"

"Were it not better that the new age created a new code and a new poetry?" said Mademoiselle Dufresnoy.

"Perhaps; but I confess I love old forms and usages, and cling to creeds outworn. Above all, to that creed which in the age of powder and compliment, no less than in the age of chivalry, enjoined absolute devotion and courtesy towards women."

"Against mere courtesy reasonably exercised and in due season, I have nothing to say," replied Mademoiselle Dufresnoy; "but the half-barbarous homage of the Middle Ages is as little to my taste as the scarcely less barbarous refinement of the Addison and Georgian periods. Both are alike unsound, because both have a basis of insincerity. Just as there is a mock refinement more vulgar than simple vulgarity, so are there courtesies which humiliate and compliments that offend."

"Mademoiselle is pleased to talk in paradoxes," said I.

Mademoiselle unlocked her door, and turning towards me with the same half-mocking smile and the same air of raillery, said:--

"Monsieur, it is written in your English histories that when John le Bon was taken captive after the battle of Cressy, the Black Prince rode bareheaded before him through the streets of London, and served him at table as the humblest of his attendants. But for all that, was John any the less a prisoner, or the Black Prince any the less a conqueror?"

"You mean, perhaps, that you reject all courtesy based on mere ceremonial. Let me then put the case of this _Froissart_ more plainly--as I would have done from the first, had I dared to speak the simple truth."

"And that is...?"

"That it will give me more pleasure to resign the book to you, Mademoiselle, than to possess it myself."

Mademoiselle Dufresnoy colors up, looks both haughty and amused, and ends by laughing.

"In truth, Monsieur," she says merrily, "if your politeness threatened at first to be too universal, it ends by becoming unnecessarily particular."

"Say rather, Mademoiselle, that you will not have the book on any terms!" I exclaim impatiently.

"Because you have not yet offered it to me upon any just or reasonable grounds."

"Well, then, bluntly and frankly, as student to student, I beg you to spare me the trouble of carrying this book back to the Boulevard. Yours, Mademoiselle, was the first intention. You saw the book before I saw it.

You would have bought it on the spot, but had to go home for the money.

In common equity, it is yours. In common civility, as student to student, I offer it to you. Say, is it yes or no?"

"Since you put it so simply and so generously, and since I believe you really wish me to accept your offer," replies Mademoiselle Dufresnoy, taking out her purse, "I suppose I must say--yes."

And with this, she puts out her hand for the hook, and offers me in return the sum of five and twenty francs.

Pained at having to accept the money, pained at being offered it, seeing no way of refusing it, and feel altogether more distress than is reasonable in a man brought up to the taking of fees; I affect not to see the coin, and, bowing, move away in the direction of my own door.

"Pardon, Monsieur," she says, "but you forget that I am in your debt."

"And--and do you really insist..."

She looks at me, half surprised and half offended.

"If you do not take the money, Monsieur, how can I take the book?"

Bowing, I receive the unwelcome francs in my unwilling palm.

Still she lingers.

"I--I have not thanked you as I ought for your generosity," she says, hesitatingly.

"Generosity!" I repeat, glancing with some bitterness at the five and twenty francs.

"True kindness, Monsieur, is neither bought nor sold," says the lady, with the loveliest smile in the world, and closes her door.

CHAPTER XLII

THE OLD, OLD STORY.

What thing is Love, which nought can countervail?

Nought save itself--even such a thing is Love.

SIR W. RALEIGH.

My acquaintance with Hortense Dufresnoy progressed slowly as, ever, and not even the Froissart incident went far towards promoting it. Absorbed in her studies, living for the intellect only, too self-contained to know the need for sympathy, she continued to be, at all events for me, the most inaccessible of G.o.d's creatures. And yet, despite her indifference, I loved her. Her pale, proud face haunted me; her voice haunted me. I thought of her sometimes till it seemed impossible she should not in some way be conscious of how my very soul was centred in her. But she knew nothing--guessed nothing--cared nothing; and the knowledge that I held no place in her life wrought in me at times till it became almost too bitter for endurance.

And this was love--real, pa.s.sionate, earnest; the first and last love of my heart. Did I believe that I ever loved till now? Ah! no; for now only I felt the G.o.d in his strength, and beheld him in his beauty. Was I not blind till I had looked into her eyes and drunk of their light? Was I not deaf till I had heard the music of her voice? Had I ever truly lived, or breathed, or known delight till now?

I never stayed to ask myself how this would end, or whither it would lead me. The mere act of loving was too sweet for questioning. What cared I for the uncertainties of the future, having hope to live upon in the present? Was it not enough "to feed for aye my lamp and flames of love," and worship her till that worship became a religion and a rite?

And now, longing to achieve something which should extort at least her admiration, if not her love, I wished I were a soldier, that I might win glory for her--or a poet, that I might write verses in her praise which should be deathless--or a painter, that I might spend years of my life in copying the dear perfection of her face. Ah! and I would so copy it that all the world should be in love with it. Not a wave of her brown hair that I would not patiently follow through all its windings. Not the tender tracery of a blue vein upon her temples that I would not lovingly render through its transparent veil of skin. Not a depth of her dark eyes that I would not study, "deep drinking of the infinite." Alas!

those eyes, so grave, so luminous, so steadfast:--

"Eyes not down-dropt, not over-bright, but fed With the clear-pointed flame of chast.i.ty,"

--eyes wherein dwelt "thought folded over thought," what painter need ever hope to copy them?