Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/224

 caprice that this fragment bears. By a touch both sweet and dreamy, her soul was speaking to the young man’s soul and enwrapt it with almost visible ideas as with a cloud. Seated at the end of the piano, his elbow leaning upon the lid and his head in his left hand, Savinien was admiring Ursule, whose eyes, fixed upon the woodwork, seemed to be searching into a mysterious world. One might have fallen deeply in love for less. Genuine feeling has its magnetism, and Ursule wanted in some way to show her mind, as a coquette adorns herself in order to please. So Savinien penetrated into this delicious kingdom, led away by the heart, that, to interpret itself, borrowed the power of the only art which speaks to thought by thought itself, without the help of words, color or form. Sincerity has the same power over man as childhood, it has the same charm and the same irresistible fascination; now Ursule had never been more sincere than at this moment when she was just beginning a new life. The curé came to tear the nobleman from his dream by asking him to make the fourth at whist. Ursule continued playing, the heirs left, with the exception of Désiré, who was trying to find out the intentions of his great-uncle, of the viscount and of Ursule.

“You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle,” said Savinien when the young girl shut her piano to come and sit beside her godfather. “Who is your master?”