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Updated: May 26, 2025
Not only had Music arisen before the eyes of Calyste, touching him with her divine wand until he stood in presence of Creation from which she rent the veil, but he was dumfounded by Conti's genius. In spite of what Camille had told him of the musician's character, he now believed in the beauty of the soul, in the heart that expressed such love. How could he, Calyste, rival such as an artist?
Camille tried to make Calyste talk, hoping that his artless mind would betray itself; but the youth excused himself on the ground that his mother expected him, and he left Les Touches at eleven o'clock, not, however, without having faced the fire of a piercing glance from Camille, to whom that excuse was made for the first time.
Calyste started toward Guerande with the lightness and agility of a chamois, doubling like a hare that he might not return upon his tracks or meet any of the servants of Les Touches. He did, however, meet two of them on the narrow causeway of the marsh along which he went. "Shall I go in, or shall I not?" he thought when the pines of Les Touches came in sight.
Seeing his weakness, she came at once to his succor to relieve his embarrassment. "Well, dear friend, you find me alone," she said, as soon as the two gentlemen had left the box, "yes, alone in the world!" "You forget me!" said Calyste. "You!" she replied, "but you are married. That was one of my griefs, among the many I have endured since I saw you last.
The two parties bowed and separated. "No one would suppose Mademoiselle des Touches to be more than thirty," said the baron to his wife. "She is very handsome. And Calyste prefers that haggard Parisian marquise to a sound Breton girl!" "I fear he does," replied the baroness. A boat was waiting at the steps of the jetty, where the party embarked without a smile. The marquise was cold and dignified.
"But you have neither pleased me nor displeased me," she said, in a gentle voice. The tone, air, and manner in which the marquise said these words encouraged Calyste. "Am I so indifferent to you?" he said in a troubled voice, as the tears came into his eyes. "Ought we not to be indifferent to each other?" replied the marquise. "Have we not, each of us, another, and a binding attachment?"
At that audacious falsehood Arthur bowed his head; he passed beneath the Caudine forks of submission. A real love descends at times to these sublime meannesses. Arthur behaved with Madame Schontz as Sabine with Calyste, and Calyste with Beatrix. Within a week the transition from larva to butterfly took place in the young, handsome, and clever Charles-Edouard, Comte Rusticoli de la Palferine.
The luckless man was again impelled to that violence which had once before almost cost Beatrix her life; but this time the marquise was on the edge of a sofa, not on that of a rock; she rose to ring the bell, laying a finger on his lips. Calyste, recalled to order, controlled himself, all the more because he saw that Beatrix had no inimical intention.
This conviction became certainty when the evidently happy Breton came up to bid Beatrix good-night, kissing her hand, and pressing it with a little air of happy confidence. By the time Calyste had reached Guerande, the servants were packing Conti's travelling-carriage, and "by dawn," as the song had said, the composer was carrying Beatrix away with Camille's horses to the first relay.
The baron, on this, came out of his apathy and recovered a little of his old strength; he grew younger as his son seemed to age. With Calyste, Gasselin, and his two fine dogs, he started for the forest, and for some days all three hunted. Calyste obeyed his father and went where he was told, from forest to forest, visiting friends and acquaintances in the neighboring chateaus.
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