Page:The Head - Keepsake 1834.pdf/14

104, and the silver muslin curtains reflected back the soft light of the lamps; while roses, on which months of care had been bestowed for an hour of lavish bloom, the red light from the cheerful hearth, the rich carpet, over which the step passed noiseless, the perfumes that exhaled their fragrant essence—all mocked the desolation without. Leaning upon a couch near the window was the Comtesse Amalie, pretty as ever, changed in nothing save costume, which was suited to the classical mania of the day; her hair was gathered up in a Grecian knot, the little foot wore a sandal, and the white robe, à l'antique, was fastened by cameos. Suddenly a door opened—and the rain damp upon his cloak, and his hair glittering with its moisture, entered Julian; he was changed, for he looked pale and exhausted, and lip and brow wore the fixed character and the deeper line which passion ever leaves behind. Amalie rose, and, with an expression of the tenderest welcome, took his cloak from him, and with her own mignon hands drew the fauteuil towards the fire, and then placing herself on a little stool at his feet, looked up in his face with an asking and anxious gaze, perhaps the most touching that a woman’s features can assume to her lover. Amalie did not love Julian as he loved her—it was not in her nature—but her light and vain temper was subdued by his earnest and impetuous one; she feared him too, and fear is the great strengthener of a woman’s love. Besides there is something in intense passion that communicates itself, as the warmth of the sun colours the cloud, whose frail substance is yet incapable of retaining the light or heat. Amalie had no sympathy with the poetry of his character; but it gave grace to his flattery and variety to himself, to say nothing of the advantage of contrast with all her other adorateurs. Moreover his influence with the Jacobin clubs had warded off dangers that had crushed other families as noble as that of De Boufflers. Julian, like all of an imaginative turn, deceived