第493章

THE INTERVIEW.

After a minute's hesitation, Rose-Pompon said to Adrienne, whose heart was beating violently: "I will tell you directly, madame, what I have on my mind.I should not have gone out of my way to seek you, but, as I happen to fall in with you, it is very natural I should take advantage of it."

"But, miss," said Adrienne, mildly, "may I at least know the subject of the conversation we are to have together?"

"Yes, madame," replied Rose-Pompon, affecting an air of still more decided confidence; "first of all, you must not suppose I am unhappy, or going to make a scene of jealousy, or cry like a forsaken damsel.Do not flatter yourself! Thank heaven, I have no reason to complain of Prince Charming--that is the pet name I gave him--on the contrary, he has made me very happy.If I left him, it was against his will, and because I chose."

So saying, Rose-Pompon, whose heart was swelling in spite of her fine airs, could not repress a sigh.

"Yes, madame," she resumed, "I left him because I chose--for he quite doted on me.If I had liked, he would have married me--yes, madame, married me--so much the worse, if that gives you pain.Though, when I say `so much the worse,' it is true that I meant to pain you.To be sure I did--but then, just now when I saw you so kind to poor Mother Bunch, though I was certainly in the right, still I felt something.However, to cut matters short, it is clear that I detest you, and that you deserve it," added Rose-Pompon, stamping her foot.

From all this it resulted, even for a person much less sagacious than Adrienne, and much less interested in discovering the truth, that Rose-

Pompon, notwithstanding her triumphant airs in speaking of him whom she represented as so much attached to her, and even anxious to wed her, was in reality completely disappointed, and was now taking refuge in a deliberate falsehood.It was evident that she was not loved, and that nothing but violent jealousy had induced her to desire this interview with Mdlle.de Cardoville, in order to make what is vulgarly called a scene, considering Adrienne (the reason will be explained presently) as her successful rival.But Rose-Pompon, having recovered her good-nature, found it very difficult to continue the scene in question, particularly as, for many reasons, she felt overawed by Adrienne.

Though she had expected, if not the singular speech of the grisette, at least something of the same result--for she felt it was impossible that the prince could entertain a serious attachment for this girl--Mdlle.de Cardoville was at first delighted to hear the confirmation of her hopes from the lips of her rival; but suddenly these hopes were succeeded by a cruel apprehension, which we will endeavor to explain.What Adrienne had just heard ought to have satisfied her completely.Sure that the heart of Djalma had never ceased to belong to her, she ought, according to the customs and opinions of the world, to have cared little if, in the effervescence of an ardent youth, he had chanced to yield to some ephemeral caprice for this creature, who was, after all, very pretty and desirable--the more especially as he had now repaired his error by separating from her.

Notwithstanding these good reasons, such an error of the senses would not have been pardoned by Adrienne.She did not understand that complete separation of the body and soul that would make the one exempt from the stains of the other.She did not think it a matter of indifference to toy with one woman whilst you were thinking of another.Her young, chaste, passionate love demanded an absolute fealty--a fealty as just in the eyes of heaven and nature as it may be ridiculous and foolish in the eyes of man.For the very reason that she cherished a refined religion of the senses, and revered them as an adorable and divine manifestation, Adrienne had all sorts of delicate scruples and nice repugnances, unknown to the austere spirituality of those ascetic prudes who despise vile matter too much to take notice of its errors, and allow it to grovel in filth, to show the contempt in which they hold it.Mdlle.de Cardoville was not one of those wonderfully modest creatures who would die of confusion rather than say plainly that they wished for a young and handsome husband, at once ardent and pure.It is true that they generally marry old, ugly, and corrupted men, and make up for it by taking two or three lovers six months after.But Adrienne felt instinctively how much of virginal and celestial freshness there is in the equal innocence of two loving and passionate beings--what guarantees for the future in the remembrance which a man preserves of his first love!

We say, then, that Adrienne was only half-satisfied, though convinced by the vexation of Rose-Pompon that Djalma had never entertained a serious attachment for the grisette.

"And why do you detest me, miss?" said Adrienne mildly, when Rose-Pompon had finished her speech.

"Oh! bless me, madame!" replied the latter, forgetting altogether her assumption of triumph, and yielding to the natural sincerity of her character; "pretend that you don't know why I detest you!--Oh, yes!

people go and pick bouquets from the jaws of a panther for people that they care nothing about, don't they? And if it was only that!" added Rose-Pompon, who was gradually getting animated, and whose pretty face, at first contracted into a sullen pout, now assumed an expression of real and yet half-comic sorrow.

"And if it was only the nosegay!" resumed she."Though it gave me a dreadful turn to see Prince Charming leap like a kid upon the stage, I might have said to myself: `Pooh! these Indians have their own way of showing politeness.Here, a lady drops her nosegay, and a gentleman picks it up and gives it to her; but in India it is quite another thing;