Abbe Miollens hastened to repair to Cormeilles, where he gave a faithful circumstantial account of his conference with Count Larinski.
He was still warm from the interview, and he gave free vent to the effusions of his enthusiasm.He struck up a Canticle of Zion in honour of the antique soul, the celestial soul, which had just been revealing to him all its hidden treasures.M.Moriaz, both astonished and scandalized, observed, dryly:
"You are right, this Pole is a prodigy; he should either be canonized or hanged, I do not know which."Antoinette said not a word; she kept her reflections to herself.She retired to her chamber, where she paced to and fro for some time, uncertain regarding what she was about to do, or, rather more restless than uncertain.Several times she approached her writing-table, and gazed earnestly at her inkstand; then, seized with a sudden scruple, she would move away.At last she formed a resolute decision, seized her pen, and wrote the following lines:
"MONSIEUR: Before setting out for Vienna, will you be so good as to come and pass some moments at Cormeilles? I desire to have a conversation with you in the presence of my father.
"Accept, monsieur, I beg of you, the expression of my most profound esteem.
"ANTOINETTE MORIAZ."
The next morning she received by the first mail the response she awaited, and which was thus fashioned:
"This test would be more than my courage could endure.I never shall see you again, for, should I do so, I would be a lost man."This short response caused Mlle.Moriaz a disappointment full of bitterness, and blended with no little wrath.She held in her hand a pencil, which she deliberately snapped in two, apparently to console herself for not having broken the proud and obstinate will of Count Abel Larinski.And yet can one break iron or a diamond? The carrier had brought her at the same time another letter, which she opened mechanically, merely to satisfy her conscience.She ran through the first lines without succeeding in comprehending a single word that she read.Suddenly her attention became riveted, her face brightened up, her eyes kindled.This letter, which a kind Providence had sent her as a supreme resource in her distress, was from the hand of Mlle.Galet, and here was what this retired florist of the Rue Mouffetard wrote:
"MA CHERE DEMOISELLE: I learn that you have returned.What happiness for me! and how I long to see you! You are my good angel, whom I should like to see every day of my life, and the time has seemed so long to me without you.When you enter the garret of the poor, infirm old woman, it seems to her as though there were three suns in the heavens; when you abandon her, the blackness of midnight surrounds her.Mme.de Lorcy has been very good to me.As my angel requested her, she came a fortnight since to pay me the quarter due of my pension.She is a very charitable lady, and she dresses beautifully; but she is a little hard on poor people.She asks a great many questions; she wants to know everything.She reproached me with spending too much, being too fond of luxury, and you know how that is.She forgets that everything is higher priced than it used to be, that meat and vegetables are exorbitant, and that just now eggs cost one franc and fifty centimes a dozen.Besides, a poor creature, deprived of the use of her limbs, as I am, cannot go to market herself, and it is quite possible that my /femme de menage/ does not purchase as wisely as she might.I know I have great scenes with her sometimes for bringing me early vegetables; /le bon Dieu/ can, at least, bear me witness that I am no glutton.
"The good Mme.de Lorcy scolded me about a bouquet of camellias she saw on my table, just like those for which I have been grateful to my angel.I don't know what notions she got into her head about them.Ah! well, /ma chere demoiselle/, I have learned since that these double camellias--they are variegated, red and white--came to me from a man, for, at present, as it would appear, men have taken to give me bouquets and ****** me visits; it is rather late in the day.The particular man to whom I refer presented himself one fine morning, and, telling me that you had spoken to him of me, said that he wished to assure himself that I was well and wanted nothing.He returned several times, always pampering me with some attention or other.But the best of all was when he came to tell me that my angel had returned.What a man he is! he has surely dropped right down from the skies! One evening when I was sick he gave me my medicine himself, and would have sat up with me all night if I had been willing to let him.You must tell me who he is, for it puzzles me greatly.He has the head of some grand lion; he is as generous as he is handsome, but very sad.He must have some great sorrow on his heart.The misfortune, so far as Iam concerned, is that he cannot spoil me much longer--it is almost over now.He expects to leave here in two days; and he has announced to me that he will come to make his adieus, to-morrow afternoon.
"You will come soon, won't you, /ma chere demoiselle/? I burn with impatience to embrace you, since you permit me to embrace you.You are my angel and my sunshine, and I am your very humble and devoted servant,"LOUISE GALET."This letter of Mlle.Louise Galet continued nothing definite, beyond, perhaps, the passage relative to the early vegetables, and the supposed scenes with her /chambriere/.Whatever may have been the good demoiselle's past record, she certainly was not void of principles, and she prided herself on her truthfulness; only she did not always see the necessity of telling everything she knew; in her narratives she frequently omitted certain details.She had written at the instigation of Samuel Brohl, who had not explained to her his motives.
To be sure, she had partially divined these, being shrewd and sly.He had commended himself to her discretion, for which he had paid liberally.Mlle.Galet had at first refused the round sum he had offered her; she had ended by accepting it with tender gratitude.
