Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/429

Rh ended: Ivan shortly afterwards accompanied his friend to his apartment, bade him a cordial good-night, and then went at once to the dressing-room, where Clémence was awaiting him, and reading meanwhile the letters Emile had given her.

The accounts of Stéphanie were particularly interesting to her. How the approbation of that young lady's guardian had ever been obtained by a suitor who had so small a portion of this world's goods to offer as Henri de Talmont, was certainly a mystery. The letters only solved it indirectly. That of Madame de Talmont was the most satisfactory. She observed that the will of Stéphanie's guardian was very weak, while that of Stéphanie herself was remarkably strong. When M. de Galmar informed her of Henri's proposal, adding, as a matter of course, that he would decline it for her, she was far too decorous and well-bred to make the smallest objection; but she told him very quietly that she had often thought of embracing a religious life, and that as her friend Madame de Krudener was now about to found a missionary community—she believed among the Tartars on the Danube—she wished to signify her intention of joining it as soon as she came of age. "Your cousin is a strange girl," M. de Galmar observed afterwards to his daughter Coralie. "But, after all, a Protestant is not as bad as a Tartar. Nor is dining upon three courses, instead of twelve, quite as bad as being dined upon oneself by cannibals in some of those savage countries. She had better take the young architect."

Clémence looked up from her letter with an air of amusement, which changed into one of grave anxiety as she saw the serious face of Ivan bending over her. She drew a chair for him near the fire, and said, "I am longing to hear all, Ivan. Why did the Czar send for you? How did you find him?"

Ivan answered the last question first: "Looking depressed and weary, and his deafness more apparent than ever. I had to sit quite close to him, and to raise my voice to make him hear. He