Entering his hotel, he went at once to Valerie’s
chamber. “Sleep well to-night, child;
Alain has told me that he adores thee, and if he will
go to the war, it is that he may lay his laurels at
thy feet. Bless thee, my child, thou couldst
not have made a nobler choice.”
Whether, after these words, Valerie slept well or
not ’tis not for me to say; but if she did sleep,
I venture to guess that her dreams were rose-coloured.
All the earlier part of that next day, Graham Vane
remained in-doors—a lovely day at Paris
that 8th of July, and with that summer day all hearts
at Paris were in unison. Discontent was charmed
into enthusiasm— Belleville and Montmartre
forgot the visions of Communism and Socialism and
other “isms” not to be realised except
in some undiscovered Atlantis!
The Emperor was the idol of the day—the
names of Jules Favre and Gambetta were by-words of
scorn. Even Armand Monnier, still out of work,
beginning to feel the pinch of want, and fierce for
any revolution that might turn topsy-turvy the conditions
of labour,—even Armand Monnier was found
among groups that were laying immortelles at the foot
of the column in the Place Vendome, and heard to say
to a fellow malcontent, with eyes uplifted to the
statue of the First Napoleon, “Do you not feel
at this moment that no Frenchman can be long angry
with the Little Corporal? He denied La Liberte,
but he gave La Gloire.”
Heeding not the stir of the world without, Graham
was compelling into one resolve the doubts and scruples
which had so long warred against the heart which they
ravaged, but could not wholly subdue.
The conversations with Mrs. Morley and Rochebriant
had placed in a light in which he had not before regarded
it, the image of Isaura.
He had reasoned from the starting-point of his love
for her, and had sought to convince himself that against
that love it was his duty to strive.
But now a new question was addressed to his conscience
as well as to his heart. What though he had
never formally declared to her his affection—
never, in open words, wooed her as his own—never
even hinted to her the hopes of a union which at one
time he had fondly entertained,—still was
it true that his love had been too transparent not
to be detected by her, and not to have led her on
to return it?
Certainly he had, as we know, divined that he was
not indifferent to her: at Enghien, a year ago,
that he had gained her esteem, and perhaps interested
her fancy.
