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Updated: June 15, 2025
The Count de Roannes came unexpectedly and unobserved upon the climax of the little scene, and read into it more significance than it really had. It was not strange, perhaps, that to him this meeting should savour of clandestine relations and that he should impute to it false motives and impulses.
Don't you remember, you said it was not life but death and I said it was both! And it is! it is! I thought I was strong enough to brave hell! Opal though you are betrothed to the Count de Roannes you are my wife! And our wedding-journey shall be eternal through stars, Opal, and worlds far-off, glimmering worlds our freed spirits together, always together together!"
He had not found his opportunity he had made one! With a malicious smile on his thin, wicked lips the Count de Roannes watched them as they moved across the room toward the conservatory this pair so finely matched that all must needs admire. It was rather amusing in les enfants, he told Ledoux, this "Paul et Virginie" episode. Somewhat bourgeois, of course but harmless, he hoped.
She drew him to one side, whispering, "Before you judge me too harshly, Paul, please listen to what I have to say. I feel I have the right to make this explanation, and you have the right to hear it. Under the French law, I am legally bound to the Count de Roannes.
Paul knew not why he should thus connect these two, but nevertheless the impression grew that in some way de Roannes exercised a sinister influence over the life of the girl he loved. He hated the Count. He resented every look that those dissolute eyes flashed at the girl, and he noticed many. He saw Opal wince sometimes, and then turn pale. Yet she did not resent the offense. But Paul did.
Ledoux spoke in a tone of ringing emphasis that lingered in Paul's ears all the rest of his life, "I think, Opal, it is time to share our secret!" And then, as the girl's face paled, and her frail form trembled with the force of her emotion, her mother hastened to add, "Gentlemen, you will rejoice with us that our daughter was last week formally betrothed to the Count de Roannes!"
There was a strained note in the tones of the girl that grated strangely upon the Boy's sensitive ear. What had happened? he wondered. What was the new barrier between them? Was it the priest? Again the thought of the priest worried him. "Where is my friend, the Count de Roannes?" he ventured at last. "He sailed for Paris last week." Paul's heart leaped.
On the morning of the day appointed, Paul Zalenska from an upper deck watched the party he had been awaiting, as they mounted the gang-plank. Gilbert Ledoux he scarcely noticed. The Count de Roannes, too, interested him no longer when, with a hasty glance, he had assured himself that the Frenchman was as old as Ledoux and not the gay young dandy in Opal's train that he had feared to find him.
And at last, when the Boy was beginning to acknowledge himself slightly bored, and to resent the familiar footing on which he could see the Count de Roannes already stood in the family circle, Opal entered, and the gloomy, wearisome atmosphere seemed suddenly flooded with sunlight. She came in from the street, unconventionally removing her hat and gloves as she entered.
Ledoux looked on, troubled and perplexed, but he saw no chance, and indeed no real reason, for interfering. The Count de Roannes was irritated, at times even provoked, but he kept his thoughts to himself, hiding his annoyance, and his secret explosions of "Au diable!" beneath his usual urbanity.
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