Beauchamp's Career -- Volume 1

without an attack at times, which, when the pursuer is ardent, is followed by a retreat, which is a provocation; and these things are coquettry. Her still fresh convent- conscience a

marquis here in a week, my child,' he said. Renee nodded. Involuntarily she loo

reply to him: 'Who? th

llard of fifty wh

his age, Rola

e, then, m

s not

look

ve been

y say it is the way with green gentlemen of a certain age. They advance and they ret

ed the Comte de Croisn

is hardly past forty

I was merely offering proof that he

ubject for moc

ontrary; for

my boy, and he wo

then, that his han

s always owing to your own family, and deliberate before you draw on

and drummed

d its burden she could look at him no more, and when her father addressed her significantly: 'Marquise, you did me the honour to consent to

ned the situa

; they were a comtesse and a baronne, and they settled the alliance. The bell was rung, and Renee came out of school. There is this to be said: she has no mother; the sooner a girl without a mother has a husband the better. That we are all agreed upon. I have no personal objection to the marquis; he has never been in any great scandals. He is Norman, and has estates in Normandy, Dauphiny, Touraine; he is hospitable, luxurious. Renee will have a fine hotel in Paris. But I am eccentric: I have read in our old Fabliaux of December and May. Say the marquis is November, say October; he is still some distance removed from the plump Spring month. And we in our family have wits and p

nd the babble of an ephemeral upper world simply affected him by its contrast with the overpowering horrors, repugnances, despairs, pities, rushing at him, surcharging his senses. Those that live much by the heart in their youth have sharp foretastes of t

d known, not even clearly visioned. Not a day of her, not an hour, not a single look had been his own. She had been sold when he first beheld her, and should, he muttered austerely, have been ticketed the property of a middle-aged man, a worn- out French

front, covering mud and marsh and lagune-flames of later afternoon, and you have sight

said, 'She is tired of standing gazing at pictures. There is a Veronese in one of the churches of the Giudecca opposite. Will you, M. Nevil, act as parade-escort to he

sted in a r

the count; 'she damps m

y accepted

e appeared an expanse of many sunny fields. On this occasion it puffed ste

It is rather melancholy though. How did you discover it? I persuaded my papa to sen

ve. You have seen their burial-ground on the Lido. Those a

have, permit me to remark, the brevity without the

one and womanly aplomb of her language. It made him forget that

elf. Your heart's inclinations are sacred for me. I would stand by, and b

should not have l

have ever known from certain wretchedness. To yield yourself hand and foot for life! I warn you that it must end miserably. Your countrywomen . . . You have the

d he has not yet landed! she thought, and said, 'Do y

. His anxiety is to provide for you. But I know the s

it is not

me you can say with pride and happiness that the Marqui

ed across

father knew you

speak

ele

erous, he

an engagement bin

t to have it known to him-I beg for more than life-

eath softened

have him ever break an eng

h the point

French system is not always wrong, for if my father had not broken it by tre

displeas

But, I mean, a mother

hed to a

had some instinct;

ew I lo

N

this mor

retted my fancy, that you were inclined

h Re

e. And those are the h

re mou

m, and Nevil thought that a tomb there would be a welcome end, if he might lift Renee in one wild fligh

veable, in p

an you have realized wha

ed, 'It is

ng up a dice-box, and flin

you not understand duty to parents? They s

s and obligations; but with us

, and when it i

ask it. Noth

ght that the heart deceives itself. The hea

er obedience as a girl, and now silenced in the

re lost to

he gondola

home; it loitered when

brimming with his pictu

. This little boulevard

riend,' she dropped her

ve conversed on

in his, to place

in her father's invitation to him. She leaned back, nestling her chin and half closing h

and the fists entrenched in his wide trowsers-pockets were mortally at feud. His adventure had not pursued its course luminously. He had expected romance, and had met merchandize, and his vanity was offended. To pacify him, Nevil related how he had heard that since the Venetian

s utterly decayed,' said Roland, 'I

anile, on the warm-white stones of the square, Nevil admitting the weight of whatsoever Roland pointed to him in favour of the arrangement according to French notio

hand to shape them, otherwise they grow all awry. My father will not have one of her aunts to live with him, so there she is.

obe

girls are chess-pieces

e and character so

affected no astonishment; never was there a creature so nobly sincere. She's a

sh she were going to marry a younger. I wish, yes, my friend,' Roland squeezed

single sign,

e, my f

ve, 'I hope all the more . . . because I will not believe that she, so pure and

k the current of duplicity. You ar

given for slumber. A small round brilliant moon hung almost globed in the dept

m, and blinked offendedly to have her sight clear of the weakness; but these interceding tears would flow; it was dangerous to blame him, harshly. She let them roll down, figuring to herself with quiet simplicity of mind that her spirit was independent of them as long as she restrained her hands from being accomplices by brushing them away, as weeping girls do that cry for comfort. Nevil had saved her brother's life, and had succoured her countrymen; he loved her, and was a hero. He should not have said he loved her; that was wrong; and it was shameful that he should have urged her to disobey her father. But this hero's love of her might plead excuses she did not know of; and if he was to be excused, he, unhappy that he was, had a claim on her for more than tears. She wept resentfully. Forces above her own swayed and hurried her like a lifeless body dragged by flying wheels: they could not unnerve her will, or rather, what it really was, her sense of submission to a destiny. Looked at from the height of the palm-waving cherubs over the fallen martyr in the picture, she seemed as nerveless as a dreamy girl. The raise