he found the marquis absorbed in his work. "do i disturb you? so much the worse!" cried the duke. "i must embrace you. my mother has just read me the letter from the duchess de dunières."
"but, my friend, the marriage is not yet arranged," replied the marquis, while he submitted to the fraternal hugging.
"it is arranged if you wish it, and you cannot be opposed to it."
"my friend, i might perhaps wish it ever so much. i would still have to be simply charming to sustain the brilliant reputation which that old duchess has made for me, a great deal too much at your expense, i am inclined to think."
"the duchess has done just right, except only that she has not said enough. i should like to go to her and let her know everything. he believes that he is not charming! see how little he knows himself!"
"i know myself too well," rejoined m. de villemer; "i am not mistaken."
"the deuce take! do you consider yourself a bear? you were attractive enough to madame de g——, the most reserved person in the world."
"ah! i pray you do not speak of her; you remind me of all i suffered before i could inspire her with confidence in me,—all i afterwards suffered lest that confidence should from moment to moment be withdrawn. look here!" added the marquis, slightly forgetting himself; "people who are subject to strong passion have no reason. you do not know that, for you attract at first sight, and besides you do not seek for an exclusive love which shall endure for a lifetime. i know but one word to say to a woman,—i love, and if she does not understand that my whole soul is in that word, i could never add another."
"well, then, you will love diana de xaintrailles, and she will understand that supreme word of yours."
"but suppose i should not love her?"
"o my dear fellow, she is charming. i saw her when she was quite little; she was a very cherub."
"every one, i know, calls her charming; but what if she does not please me? do not tell me that it is not necessary to adore one's wife,—that it suffices to esteem her and know her to be agreeable. i do not want to argue on that subject; it would be throwing away time. let us confine ourselves to the question of my pleasing her. if i do not love, i do not know how to make myself loved, and therefore i shall not marry."
"one would indeed think you expect and depend upon that!" exclaimed the duke with real sorrow. "ah! our poor mother, who is so happy in her hope! and i, who believed myself absolved by destiny! urbain, must it be then that we are under a curse, all three of us?"
"no," replied the marquis, deeply moved; "let us not despair. i am working to modify my timid, unsociable character. upon honor, i am working with all my power for that end. i want to put an end to this agitated, sterile existence. give me the summer to triumph over my memories, my doubts, my apprehensions; true, i want to make you happy, and god perhaps will come to my aid."
"thank you, brother; you are the best of beings!" responded the duke, embracing him again. and as the marquis was much agitated, he led him forth to walk, in order to divert his mind from his work and to fortify him in his good intentions.
the duke did then what urbain had done to conquer him on the day of their first real intimacy. he represented himself weak and suffering as a means of restoring his brother's strength and courage. he gave vivid expression to his remorse and spoke feelingly of the need he had of moral support. "two unhappy people can do nothing for each other," he said; "your melancholy has its fatal rebound on me, and overcomes me. the day when i see you happy, real energy and the joy of living will return to me."
urbain, touched by these words, renewed his promise, and, as it cost him dearly, he forced it from his mind by leading his brother's talk to lively subjects; this did not take long, for the duke required but little encouragement to return to the theme which had lately been absorbing so much of his time and thought.
"come," he said, seeing his brother smile, "you will bring me happiness in everything. i am reminded now that for some days i have had a vexation intense enough in all conscience; it has made me sullen, awkward; my mind has been clouded; i could not see my way clearly. i have been frightfully stupid. i am sure that i shall now recover my faculties."
"again some story of a woman?" asked the marquis, mastering a vague and sudden uneasiness.
"and what would you want it to be? that little de saint-geneix occupies my mind more perhaps than she ought."
"it is exactly what she ought not to do," quickly replied the marquis. "have you not given your oath to our mother? she told me you had. have you deceived mother?"
"no, not at all; but i should like very much to be compelled to deceive her."
"compelled? i have no idea what you mean."
"dear me! well, this is just what i mean." and the duke gave his brother a detailed account of how he had at first told a falsehood when he announced himself in love with caroline, from the commendable motive of getting urbain himself in love with her; how, seeing that he had not succeeded, he had conceived the plan of making her love him, without loving her; and how at last he had fallen sincerely in love with her himself, without a surety that his feeling was returned. nevertheless, he added that he counted upon victory if he could only have the courage not to declare himself; and he said all this in terms so delicate or so ambiguous that the marquis could not give him a moral lecture about it without making himself ridiculous. then, when the latter, recovering from his stupefaction, attempted to speak of the repose of his mother and the dignity of their domestic life, not daring in his distress to say anything whatever of the respect due to caroline, the duke, becoming impressed with a sudden fear that his brother might think it his duty, to give her warning, swore that he would do nothing to tempt her, but that if of her own accord she threw herself bravely into his arms at any given moment, without conditions and without calculation, he was ready to marry her. was he sincere then? yes, probably, as he had always been, when eagerness had given the appearance of possibility to what passion had afterward caused him to evade.
as his brother spoke from a kind of conviction, the marquis dared not express himself against this unlooked-for repetition of offence in the strange project. he knew that their mother did not expect to make an advantageous marriage for the one of her sons who no longer offered a guaranty of character, and the duke proved to him by arguments cogent enough that he alone was the master of his future, to whom ambition was no longer permitted. "you see," he said, in conclusion, "that all this is very serious. i attempted once more to lay a snare, i will confess to you, but i did not expect to profit by it; it was merely a game without results. i was taken in my own net, and i suffer for it a great deal. i do not ask you to aid me, but i prohibit you in the name of our friendship from influencing any one about us; for, if you frighten mlle de saint-geneix, you will exasperate me perhaps, and i no longer answer for anything; or, if you succeed in making me renounce her, it is she who, exasperated, will perhaps commit some folly in the estimation of my mother. since things are so situated that they can be cleared up only by some unforeseen circumstance, do not interfere in any way, and be certain that i shall conduct myself, come what may, in a manner to reassure your delicacy and to conflict neither with our mother's peace nor with the proprieties of the hospitality which you extend to me."
