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34 all this delight, joy, and happiness, for which I would cheerfully have surrendered ten years of my life, at the small cost of five hundred francs per annum, paid quarterly! Henceforth we have nothing to fear. I am on my own ground, and have a right to place a ladder against the wall, and to look over when I please, without having any apprehensions of the police. I may also enjoy the privilege of assuring you of my love, unless, indeed, it offends your pride to listen to love from the lips of a poor working-man, clad in a blouse and cap."

A faint cry of mingled pleasure and surprise escaped from the lips of Valentine, who almost instantly said, in a saddened tone, as though some envious cloud darkened the joy which illumined her heart:

"Alas! Maximilian, this must not be! We should presume too much on our own strength, and, like others, perhaps, be led astray by our blind confidence in each other's prudence."

"How can you say that, dear Valentine? Have I not, from the first blessed hour of our acquaintance, schooled all my words and actions to your sentiments and ideas! And you have, I am sure, the fullest confidence in my honor. When you spoke to me of your experiencing a vague and indefinite sense of coming danger, I placed myself blindly and devotedly at your service, asking no other reward than the pleasure of being useful to you; and have I ever since, by word or look, given you cause of regret for having selected me from the numbers that would willingly have sacrificed their lives for you I You told me, my dear Valentine, that you were engaged to M. d'Epinay, and that your father was resolved upon completing the match, and that from his will there was no appeal, as M. de Villefort was never known to change a deter mination once formed. I kept in the background, as you wished, waiting not the decision of your heart or my own, but hoping Providence would graciously interpose in our behalf, and order events in our favor. Nevertheless you love me, Valentine, and you have told me so; thanks for your kind words. To hear you repeat them from time to time is all I ask, to make me forget all my disquietudes."

"Ah, Maximilian, that is the very thing that makes you so bold, and which renders me at once so happy and unhappy, that I frequently ask myself which is better for me the harshness of my step-mother, and her blind preference for her own child, or the pleasure I find in our meetings, so fraught with danger to both."

"I will not admit that word," returned the young man; "it is at once cruel and unjust. Is it possible to find a more submissive slave than myself? You have permitted me to converse with you from time to time, Valentine, but forbidden my ever following you in your walks or elsewhere—have I not obeyed I And since I found means to enter