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Updated: May 3, 2025
Therefore he looked remarkably well when he jumped out of his dog-cart the ensuing Monday in front of M. des Rameures's door under the eyes of Madame de Tecle. As the latter gently stroked with her white hand the black and smoking shoulder of the thoroughbred Fitz-Aymon, Camors was for the first time presented to the Comte de Tecle, a quiet, sad, and taciturn old gentleman.
Indeed, I declare that French centralization has reached its critical term, that fatal point at which, after protecting, it oppresses; at which, after vivifying, it paralyzes; at which, having saved France, it crushes her." "Dear uncle, you are carried away by your subject," said Madame de Tecle. "Yes, Elise, I am carried away, I admit, but I am right.
All this would have touched the heart of M. de Camors, if the heart of M. de Camors had not lost, in its last effort at virtue, the last trace of humanity. His honor set at rest by his frank avowals to Madame de Tecle, he did not hesitate to profit by the advantages of the situation. He allowed her to serve him as much as she desired, and she desired it passionately.
Madame de Tecle, who reproached herself with the misfortunes of her daughter, as her own work, and who condemned herself with an unspeakable bitterness, did not cease to search, in the midst of those ruins of the past and of the present, some reparation, some refuge for the future.
Camors immediately recognized the white hair and heavy black eyebrows as the same he had seen bending over the violin the night before. "Uncle," said Madame de Tecle, introducing the young Count by a wave of the hand: "This is Monsieur de Camors."
Still young and unpractised in his pitiless system, he was troubled at the thought of a victim so pure as Madame de Tecle. To trample on the life, the repose, and the heart of such a woman, as the horse tramples on the grass of the road, with as little care or pity, was hard for a novice. Strange as it may appear, the idea of marrying her had occurred to him.
The General invited Madame de Tecle and her daughter, every year, to pass some weeks at Campvallon, rightly judging that he could not give his young wife better companions. Madame de Tecle accepted these invitations cheerfully, because it gave her an opportunity of seeing the elite of the Parisian world, from whom the whims of her uncle had always isolated her.
She turned to face him, with an expression of mingled terror and menace, and as he approached, she shot forth the single word: "Coward!" He stared at her in sheer amazement. At that moment there was a sound of hurried footsteps; a shadowy form glided toward them from the depth of the thicket, and the next instant Camors recognized Madame de Tecle.
He saluted Madame de Tecle with a slight movement of his head, and turned away immediately. He entered the garden at the back of the house, and walked abstractedly from alley to alley.
He had been walking with long strides up and down this corridor, expecting every moment to see Madame de Tecle enter. As the time passed, he sat himself down and tried to read, but his thoughts wandered. His ear eagerly caught, against his will, the slightest sounds in the house. If a foot seemed approaching him, he rose suddenly and tried to compose his countenance.
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