My dear, as I read these last words, he seemed to rise before me, pale
as the night when the camellias told their story and he knew his
offering was accepted. These words, in their humility, were clearly
something quite different from the usual flowery rhetoric of lovers,
and a wave of feeling broke over me; it was the breath of happiness.
The weather has been atrocious; impossible to go to the Bois without
exciting all sorts of suspicions. Even my mother, who often goes out,
regardless of rain, remains at home, and alone. Wednesday evening.
I have just seen him at the Opera, my dear; he is another man. He
came to our box, introduced by the Sardinian ambassador.
Having read in my eyes that this audacity was taken in good part, he
seemed awkwardly conscious of his limbs, and addressed the Marquise
d'Espard as "mademoiselle." A light far brighter than the glare of the
chandeliers flashed from his eyes. At last he went out with the air of
a man who didn't know what he might do next.
"The Baron de Macumer is in love!" exclaimed Mme. de Maufrigneuse.
"Strange, isn't it, for a fallen minister?" replied my mother.
I had sufficient presence of mind myself to regard with curiosity
Mmes. de Maufrigneuse and d'Espard and my mother, as though they were
talking a foreign language and I wanted to know what it was all about,
but inwardly my soul sank in the waves of an intoxicating joy. There
is only one word to express what I felt, and that is: rapture. Such
love as Felipe's surely makes him worthy of mine. I am the very breath
of his life, my hands hold the thread that guides his thoughts. To be
quite frank, I have a mad longing to see him clear every obstacle and
stand before me, asking boldly for my hand. Then I should know whether
this storm of love would sink to placid calm at a glance from me.
Ah! my dear, I stopped here, and I am still all in a tremble. As I
wrote, I heard a slight noise outside, and rose to see what it was.
From my window I could see him coming along the ridge of the wall at
the risk of his life. I went to the bedroom window and made him a
sign, it was enough; he leaped from the wall--ten feet--and then ran
along the road, as far as I could see him, in order to show me that he
was not hurt. That he should think of my fear at the moment when he
must have been stunned by his fall, moved me so much that I am still
crying; I don't know why. Poor ungainly man! what was he coming for?
what had he to say to me?