Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame | Page 7

hesitantly.
She quite forgot what she had been going to say, and for a moment or so regarded the fire quite gravely. But naturally this could not last long. She soon began to talk again, and it was not many minutes before she found M. Villefort in her path once more.
"I never thought I could like a Frenchman so much," she said, in all enthusiastic good faith. "At first, you know," with an apologetic half laugh, "I wondered why you had not taken an American instead, when there were so many to choose from, but now I understand it. What beautiful tender things he can say, Bertha, and yet not seem in the least sentimental. Everything comes so simply right from the bottom of his heart. Just think what he said to me yesterday when he brought me those flowers. He helps me with mine, and it is odd how things will cheer up and grow for him, I said to him, 'Arthur, how is it that no flower ever fails you?' and he answered in the gentlest quiet way, 'Perhaps because I never fail them. Flowers are like people,--one must love and be true to them, not only to-day and to-morrow, but every day--every hour--always.' And he says such things so often. That is why I am so fond of him."
As she received no reply, she turned toward the lounge. Bertha lay upon it motionless and silent,--only a large tear trembled on her cheek. Jenny sprung up, shocked and checked, and went to' her.
"Oh, Bertha!" she cried, "how thoughtless I am to tire you so, you poor little soul! Is it true that you are so weak as all that? I heard mamma and Arthur talking about it, but I scarcely believed it. They said you must go to Normandy and be nursed."
"I don't want to go to Normandy," said Bertha, "I--I am too tired. I only want to lie still and rest. I have been out too much."
Her voice, however, was so softly weak that in the most natural manner Jenny was subdued into shedding a few tears also, and kissed her fervently.
"Oh, Bertha!" she said, "you must do anything--anything that will make you well--if it is only for Arthur's sake. He loves you so--so terribly."
Whereupon Bertha laughed a little hysterically. "Does he," she said, "love me so 'terribly'? Poor M. Villefort?"
She did not go to Normandy, however, and still went into society, though not as much as had been her habit. When she spent her evenings at home, some of her own family generally spent them with her, and M. Villefort or Edmondstone read aloud or talked.
In fact, Edmondstone came oftener than ever. His anxiety and unhappiness grew upon him, and made him moody, irritable, and morbid.
One night, when M. Villefort had left them alone together for a short time, he sprang from his chair and came to her couch, shaken with suppressed emotion.
"That man is killing you!" he exclaimed. "You are dying by inches! I cannot bear it!"
"It is not he who is killing me," she answered; and then M. Villefort returned to the room with the book he had been in search of.
In this case Edmondstone's passion took new phases. He wrote no sonnets, painted no pictures. He neglected his work, and spent his idle hours in rambling here and there in a gloomy, unsociable fashion.
"He looks," said M. Renard, "as if his soul had been playing him some evil trick."
He had at first complained that Bertha had taken a capricious fancy to Madame de Castro, but in course of time he found his way to the old woman's salon too, though it must be confessed that Madame herself never showed him any great favor. But this he did not care for. He only cared to sit in the same room with Bertha, and watch her every movement with a miserable tenderness.
One night, after regarding him cynically for some time, Madame broke out to Bertha with small ceremony:--
"What a fool that young man is!" she exclaimed. "He sits and fairly devours you with his eyes. It is bad taste to show such an insane passion for a married woman."
It seemed as if Bertha lost at once her breath and every drop of blood in her body, for she had neither breath nor color when she turned and looked Madame de Castro in the face.
"Madame," she said, "if you repeat that to me, you will never see me again--never!"
Upon which Madame snapped her up with some anger at being so rebuked for her frankness.
"Then it is worse than I thought," she said.
It was weeks before she saw her young friend again. Indeed, it required some clever diplomacy to heal the breach made, and even in her most amusing and affectionate moods, she often felt afterward that she