A Woman of Thirty | Page 8

thrown off. Julie cried out, her face grew white, people looked at her
curiously, but she saw no one, her eyes were fixed upon the too
mettlesome beast. The officer gave the horse a sharp admonitory cut
with the whip, and galloped off with Napoleon's order.
Julie was so absorbed, so dizzy with sights and sounds, that
unconsciously she clung to her father's arm so tightly that he could read
her thoughts by the varying pressure of her fingers. When Victor was
all but flung out of the saddle, she clutched her father with a convulsive
grip as if she herself were in danger of falling, and the old man looked
at his daughter's tell-tale face with dark and painful anxiety. Pity,
jealousy, 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