THE SAME TO THE SAME
March.
I am dressed in white--white camellias in my hair, and another in my
hand. My mother has red camellias; so it would not be impossible to
take one from her--if I wished! I have a strange longing to put off
the decision to the last moment, and make him pay for his red camellia
by a little suspense.
What a vision of beauty! Griffith begged me to stop for a little and
be admired. The solemn crisis of the evening and the drama of my
secret reply have given me a color; on each cheek I sport a red
camellia laid upon a white! 1 A. M.
Everybody admired me, but only one adored. He hung his head as I
entered with a white camellia, but turned pale as the flower when,
later, I took a red one from my mother's hand. To arrive with the two
flowers might possibly have been accidental; but this deliberate
action was a reply. My confession, therefore, is fuller than it need
have been. The opera was Romeo and Juliet. As you don't know the duet of the
two lovers, you can't understand the bliss of two neophytes in love,
as they listen to this divine outpouring of the heart.
On returning home I went to bed, but only to count the steps which
resounded on the sidewalk. My heart and head, darling, are all on fire
now. What is he doing? What is he thinking of? Has he a thought, a
single thought, that is not of me? Is he, in very truth, the devoted
slave he painted himself? How to be sure? Or, again, has it ever
entered his head that, if I accept him, I lay myself open to the
shadow of a reproach or am in any sense rewarding or thanking him? I
am harrowed by the hair-splitting casuistry of the heroines in Cyrus
and Astraea, by all the subtle arguments of the court of love.
Has he any idea that, in affairs of love, a woman's most trifling
actions are but the issue of long brooding and inner conflicts, of
victories won only to be lost! What are his thoughts at this moment?
How can I give him my orders to write every evening the particulars of
the day just gone? He is my slave whom I ought to keep busy. I shall
deluge him with work! Sunday Morning.
Only towards morning did I sleep a little. It is midday now. I have
just got Griffith to write the following letter:
"To the Baron de Macumer.
"Mademoiselle de Chaulieu begs me, Monsieur le Baron, to ask you
to return to her the copy of a letter written to her by a friend,
which is in her own handwriting, and which you carried away.
--Believe me, etc.,
"GRIFFITH."