something even of regret stole across every drawn and wrinkled line of mouth and brow. When he saw the unwonted light in Julie's eyes, when that cry broke from her, when the convulsive grasp of her fingers drew away the veil and put him in possession of her secret, then with that revelation of her love there came surely some swift revelation of the future. Mournful forebodings could be read in his own face.
Julie's soul seemed at that moment to have passed into the officer's being. A torturing thought more cruel than any previous dread contracted the old man's painworn features, as he saw the glance of understanding that passed between the soldier and Julie. The girl's eyes were wet, her cheeks glowed with unwonted color. Her father turned abruptly and led her away into the Garden of the Tuileries.
"Why, father," she cried, "there are still the regiments in the Place du Carrousel to be passed in review."
"No, child, all the troops are marching out."
"I think you are mistaken, father; M. d'Aiglemont surely told them to advance----"
"But I feel ill, my child, and I do not care to stay."
Julie could readily believe the words when she glanced at his face; he looked quite worn out by his fatherly anxieties.
"Are you feeling very ill?" she asked indifferently, her mind was so full of other thoughts.
"Every day is a reprieve for me, is it not?" returned her father.
"Now do you mean to make me miserable again by talking about your death? I was in such spirits! Do pray get rid of those horrid gloomy ideas of yours."
The father heaved a sigh. "Ah! spoiled child," he cried, "the best hearts are sometimes very cruel. We devote our whole lives to you, you are our one thought, we plan for your welfare, sacrifice our tastes to your whims, idolize you, give the very blood in our veins for you, and all this is nothing, is it? Alas! yes, you take it all as a matter of course. If we would always have your smiles and your disdainful love, we should need the power of God in heaven. Then comes another, a lover, a husband, and steals away your heart."
Julie looked in amazement at her father; he walked slowly along, and there was no light in the eyes which he turned upon her.
"You hide yourself even from us," he continued, "but, perhaps, also you hide yourself from yourself--"
"What do you mean by that, father?"
"I think that you have secrets from me, Julie.--You love," he went on quickly, as he saw the color rise to her face. "Oh! I hoped that you would stay with your old father until he died. I hoped to keep you with me, still radiant and happy, to admire you as you were but so lately. So long as I knew nothing of your future I could believe in a happy lot for you; but now I cannot possibly take away with me a hope of happiness for your life, for you love the colonel even more than the cousin. I can no longer doubt it."
"And why should I be forbidden to love him?" asked Julie, with lively curiosity in her face.
"Ah, my Julie, you would not understand me," sighed the father.
"Tell me, all the same," said Julie, with an involuntary petulant gesture.
"Very well, child, listen to me. Girls are apt to imagine noble and enchanting and totally imaginary figures in their own minds; they have fanciful extravagant ideas about men, and sentiment, and life; and then they innocently endow somebody or other with all the perfections of their day-dreams, and put their trust in him. They fall in love with this imaginary creature in the man of their choice; and then, when it is too late to escape from their fate, behold their first idol, the illusion made fair with their fancies, turns to an odious skeleton. Julie, I would rather have you fall in love with an old man than with the Colonel. Ah! if you could but see things from the standpoint of ten years hence, you would admit that my old experience was right. I know what Victor is, that gaiety of his is simply animal spirits--the gaiety of the barracks. He has no ability, and he is a spendthrift. He is one of those men whom Heaven created to eat and digest four meals a day, to sleep, to fall in love with the first woman that comes to hand, and to fight. He does not understand life. His kind heart, for he has a kind heart, will perhaps lead him to give his purse to a sufferer or to a comrade; /but/ he is careless, he has not the delicacy of heart which makes us slaves to a woman's happiness, he is ignorant, he is
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