Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/367

Rh sufficient indications that I am not triumphing over M. de Croisenois as I foolishly believed, but that I am simply succeeding him. As a matter of fact, what does it matter to me? Do I love her? I am triumphing over the marquis in so far as he would be very angry at having a successor, and angrier still at that successor being myself. How haughtily he looked at me this evening in the Café Tortoni when he pretended not to recognise me! And how maliciously he bowed to me afterwards, when he could not get out of it."

Julien had tied the cord to the last rung of the ladder. He lowered it softly and leant far out of the balcony in order to avoid its touching the window pane. "A fine opportunity to kill me," he thought, "if anyone is hidden in Mathilde's room;" but a profound silence continued to reign everywhere.

The ladder touched the ground. Julien succeeded in laying it on the border of the exotic flowers along side the wall.

"What will my mother say," said Mathilde, "when she sees her beautiful plants all crushed? You must throw down the cord," she added with great self-possession. "If it were noticed going up to the balcony, it would be a difficult circumstance to explain."

"And how am I to get away?" said Julien in a jesting tone affecting the Creole accent. (One of the chambermaids of the household had been born in Saint-Domingo.)

"You? Why you will leave by the door," said Mathilde, delighted at the idea.

"Ah! how worthy this man is of all my love," she thought.

Julien had just let the cord fall into the garden; Mathilde grasped his arm. He thought he had been seized by an enemy and turned round sharply, drawing a dagger. She had thought that she had heard a window opening. They remained motionless and scarcely breathed. The moonlight lit up everything. The noise was not renewed and there was no more cause for anxiety.

Then their embarrassment began again; it was great on both sides. Julien assured himself that the door was completely locked; he thought of looking under the bed, but he did not dare; "they might have stationed one or two lackeys there." Finally he feared that he might reproach himself in the future for this lack of prudence, and did look.