United States or Heard Island and McDonald Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I can procure her removal from Paris without self-reproach, convinced that I am doing nothing that any one could censure, or that might become the subject of enquiries. But Mme. de Plougastel is the wife of M. le Comte de Plougastel, whom all the world knows to be an agent between the Court and the emigres." "That is no fault of hers," cried M. de Kercadiou through his consternation. "Agreed.
It was a matter that Aline naturally enough in the state of her feelings had never mentioned, nor had M. de Kercadiou ever alluded to it since his coming to Meudon, by when he had perceived how unlikely it was ever to be realized.
Her arms enfolded him; her wet cheek was pressed hard against his own; her frame, which the years had not yet succeeded in robbing of its grace, was shaken by the passionate storm within her. "Oh, Andre-Louis, my child, if you knew how I have hungered to hold you so! If you knew how in denying myself this I have atoned and suffered! Kercadiou should not have told you not even now.
A man of his almost Spartan habits, accustomed to plain fare and self-help, was a little uneasy in this sybaritic abode, with its soft carpets, profusion of gilding, and battalion of sleek, silent-footed servants for Kercadiou the younger had left his entire household behind. Time, which at Gavrillac he had kept so fully employed in agrarian concerns, here hung heavily upon his hands.
At the sight of those tears streaming silently down that face that had turned so pale, M. de Kercadiou came quickly across to him. He sat down beside him and threw an arm affectionately over his shoulder. "Andre, my poor lad," he murmured. "I... I was fool enough to think you had no heart.
I am desolated that my warning should have come too late. But, when all is said, I do not think that you need really alarm yourself. War will not be made on women." M. de Kercadiou clung for comfort to that assurance after the mayor and his son had departed. But at the back of his mind there remained the knowledge of the traffic in which M. de Plougastel was engaged.
He looked back upon the episode with nausea the inevitable psychological reaction marvelling at himself that until yesterday he should have found her so desirable, and cursing himself that for the sake of that ephemeral and worthless gratification he should seriously have imperilled his chances of winning Mademoiselle de Kercadiou to wife.
In dress he was careless to the point of untidiness, and to this and to the fact that he had never married disregarding the first duty of a gentleman to provide himself with an heir he owed the character of misogynist attributed to him by the countryside. After M. de Kercadiou came M. de Vilmorin, very pale and self-contained, with tight lips and an overcast brow.
The unfortunate fellow had been caught in the act of taking a pheasant from a snare, and the gamekeeper had acted under explicit orders from his master. Infuriated by an act of tyranny so absolute and merciless, M. de Vilmorin proposed to lay the matter before M. de Kercadiou.
But you said things of M. de Lesdiguieres, if you are correctly reported, which he will never forgive." "I see," said Andre-Louis, and he fell into thought. But Mlle. de Kercadiou had already done what thinking was necessary, and her alert young mind had settled all that was to be done. "You must not go into Gavrillac," she told him, "and you must get down from your horse, and let me take it.
Word Of The Day