Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/337

Rh Shortly afterwards the guests departed. Henri drew Ivan aside. "You will be obliged to leave us?" he said in a low voice.

"Yes," Ivan answered gravely. "After what we have just heard, I must go immediately to my Czar."

Henri's voice dropped still lower, and laying his hand on the shoulder of his friend, he said a few earnest words. Ivan answered in the same tone; then, with a countenance wonderfully brightened, he left the room.

When he was gone, Henri said earnestly, turning to his mother and his aunt, "Clémence and Ivan belong to each other already in the sight of God; why should they not do so also in the sight of man? Months, if not more, may elapse before Ivan can return—a long and dangerous campaign, perhaps two, may intervene—how much better a hasty marriage than the wearing suspense and anxiety of a protracted engagement?"

"What difference can it make?" asked Madame de Salgues. "Clémence must of course remain here until things are settled."

"A very great difference," Madame de Talmont answered. "As a wife, he can send for her and she can go to him should anything untoward happen—which God forbid," she added with a trembling lip. "God alone knows what comfort there is in having the right to tend, or to mourn.—Henri, I entirely agree with you."

"It occurs to me that there is some one else whose consent will have to be obtained," Madame de Salgues observed.

Henri smiled. "I believe Ivan is this very moment engaged in obtaining it," he said.

"That being the case," said Madame de Salgues, "and after the opinion your mother has just expressed, it only remains for us to arrange details."

The next morning Clémence and Ivan were married quietly in the parish church of Versailles. It is possible that the young Russian gave a passing sigh of regret to the touching