Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/183

 third perusal, kept it crumpled up in her hand, and when she thought herself unobserved, hid it away, probably for security, in the bosom of her dress.

"There is no answer, Célandine," said she, with well-*acted calmness, belied by the fixed crimson spot in each cheek. "My darling," she added caressingly, to her daughter, "your old bonne is quite right. The sooner you are in bed the better. Good-night, my child. I shall come and see you as usual after you are asleep. Ah! Cerise, how I used to miss that nightly visit when you were at the convent. You slept better without it than your mother did, I am sure!"

Then, after her daughter left the room, she moved the lamp far back into a recess, and sat down at the open window, pressing both hands against her bosom, as though to restrain the beating of her heart.

How her mind projected itself into the future! What wild inconceivable, impracticable projects she formed, destroyed, and reconstructed once more! She overleaped probability, possibility, the usages of life, the very lapse of time. At a bound she was walking with him through her woods in Touraine, his own, his very own. They had given up Paris, the Court, ambition, society, everything in the world for each other, and they were so happy! so happy! Cerise, herself, and him. Ah! she felt now the capabilities she had for goodness. She knew what she could be with a man like that—a man whom she could respect as well as love. She almost felt the pressure of his arm, while his kind, brave face looked down into her own, under just such a moon as that rising even now through the trees above the guard-house. Then she came back to her boudoir in the Hôtel Montmirail, and the consciousness, the triumphant consciousness that, come what might, she must at least see him and hear his voice within an hour; but recalling the masked ball at the Opera House the night before, she trembled and turned pale, thinking she would never dare to look him in the face again.

There was yet another subject of anxiety. The Prince-Marshal was to come, as he often did of an evening, and pass half-an-hour over a cup of coffee before he retired to rest. It made her angry to think of her old admirer, as if