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The Duke avoided looking at Esperance. The sight of that child who loved him filled him with such emotion that he was afraid of betraying himself. The Countess de Morgueil, annoyed at seeing the two men she had sought to embroil talking together in the most courteous fashion, started to sharpen her claws once more. "What a beautiful collar, Mlle.
For a long time it had been rumoured that the very pretty Countess de Morgueil, widowed two years ago, was violently infatuated with the Duke de Morlay, who was said not to be indifferent to her affection. Afraid apparently that his meaning had not been plain, Marset insisted, "she is always circling about the Duke."
I hate to send you to practice a dissimulation that I abhor, but we are in a situation of such delicacy and difficulty.... God keep you!" He kissed her tenderly. She went back to her fiance, to find to her surprise that the Countess de Morgueil had just passed by with him. Maurice pointed them out where they were walking slowly in the distance. "Oh! so much the better," said Esperance.
Don't be either too nervous or too malicious, it does not agree with your type of beauty. I kiss your hands." He went towards the Chateau, and took up his vigil in the little salon adjoining Esperance's room. The Countess of Morgueil was confused and mortified. "He is not so stupid as he looks," she thought. Albert was reading, but listening all the time.
The Duke came by, and seeing them alone, he joined them. "The three of you alone?" he cried. "Then you will allow me to join you for a moment?" "Look," said Maurice, indicating Albert and the Countess de Morgueil. "There is a dangerous woman who is making mischief at this moment!... And, nevertheless, I owe her the happiness this moment brings me."
"Oh, no! but now it will go more slowly. The Countess de Morgueil will have to make several repetitions of her tableau of the enchantress Melusina." It was the little de Marset who had spoken. Esperance started.
"All alone, Count, and dreaming! Ah! you are thinking of her. Come, let us stroll along together." And the young Countess de Morgueil took his arm before he had time to answer. "You were not at the rehearsal this morning. You know that they have given up the tableaux of 'Europa. Did you insist upon it?" "No, why should I have made myself so ridiculous?" "But the Duke pretended...."
The young people waited for Albert a little while longer, but as he did not appear, Maurice advised the girls to retire, and he returned to sit down anxiously under the oak. He had been there hardly a quarter of an hour when he saw the Countess de Morgueil go by. She was alone and walked nervously. On the doorstep she stopped and looked back into the distance.
"But," the Countess de Morgueil addressed him suddenly, "What would you do, if on the eve of attaining the longed-for happiness, you found yourself suddenly confronted by an insurmountable obstacle." "Everything would depend on the quality of the happiness in prospect, Madame. Some happiness easily abandoned, and some happiness is to be struggled for until death itself."
Come with me, it is time for the concert. You go on immediately after Delaunay. The Duchess is unable to contain herself at the idea of hearing you recite her poem." The Duke passed by, accompanied by the pretty Countess de Morgueil, at whose conversation he was smiling politely and replying vaguely. He seemed not to have seen the others.
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