Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/126

102 alone with Blandine she expressed her apprehensions for the young Count's future: "This big boy, full of illusions, will need a veritable angel, to serve him as a guide, and to conduct him through life; someone who, without snatching him roughly from his chimeras, will lead him gently by the hand into paths of reality."

Blandine promised her benefactress, with all her heart, to watch always over the young Count and never to leave him unless he drove her away. The Dowager would have gladly made their union indissoluble, but she dared not approach this delicate subject with Henry or communicate to him her dearest wish. Anxiety of mind at length affected her robust health and her state grew worse from day to day. She saw death approach with that proud resignation which she had imbibed from the works of her favourite philosophers; she would even have welcomed it with the joy that a worker, overcome by the fatigue of a hard week, shows at the approach of the Sunday's rest, if the fate of her dear boy had not stricken her with anguish.

Henry and Blandine were standing at her bedside, deceived by the calmness of the