Frances Hodgson Burnett

“ Afterward, when society became a little restive and eager, M. Renard looked on with sardonic interest.
“That happy man, M. Villefort,” he said to Madame de Castro, “is a good soul—a good soul. He has no small jealous follies,” and his smile was scarcely a pleasant thing to see.
“There is nothing for us beyond this past,” Bertha had said, and Edmondstone had agreed with her hopelessly. ”

“ They said you must go to Normandy and be nursed.”
“I don’t want to go to Normandy,” said Bertha, “I—I am too tired. I only want to lie still and rest. I have been out too much.”
Her voice, however, was so softly weak that in the most natural manner Jenny was subdued into shedding a few tears also, and kissed her fervently.
“Oh, Bertha!” she said, “you must do anything—anything that will make you well—if it is only for Arthur’s sake. He loves you so—so terribly.”
Whereupon Bertha laughed a little hysterically. “Does he,” she said, “love me so ‘terribly’? Poor M. Villefort?” ”

“ His anxiety and unhappiness grew upon him, and made him moody, irritable, and morbid.
One night, when M. Villefort had left them alone together for a short time, he sprang from his chair and came to her couch, shaken with suppressed emotion.
“That man is killing you!” he exclaimed. “You are dying by inches! I cannot bear it!”
“It is not he who is killing me,” she answered; and then M. Villefort returned to the room with the book he had been in search of.
In this case Edmondstone’s passion took new phases. He wrote no sonnets, painted no pictures. ”

“ Flowers are like people,—one must love and be true to them, not only to-day and to-morrow, but every day—every hour—always.’ And he says such things so often. That is why I am so fond of him.”
As she received no reply, she turned toward the lounge. Bertha lay upon it motionless and silent,—only a large tear trembled on her cheek. Jenny sprung up, shocked and checked, and went to’ her.
“Oh, Bertha!” she cried, “how thoughtless I am to tire you so, you poor little soul! Is it true that you are so weak as all that? I heard mamma and Arthur talking about it, but I scarcely believed it. ”

“ M. Renard’s laugh receded into the smile again, and the smile became of double significance.
“True,” he acquiesced, “but it is also villainously apropos. Look for yourself.”
Madame did so, and her next query, after she had dropped her glass again, was a sharp one.
“Who is she—the wife?”
“She is what you are pleased to call one of our Americans! You know the class,”—with a little wave of the hand,—“rich, unconventional, comfortable people, who live well and dress well, and have an incomprehensibly naïve way of going to impossible places and doing impossible things by way of enjoyment. ”

“ Henceforth, those who saw his wife invariably saw him also,—driving with her in her carriage, riding with her courageously if ungracefully, standing or seated near her in the shadow of her box at the Nouvelle Opéra, silent, impassive, grave, noticeable only through the contrast he afforded to her girlish beauty and bloom.
“Always there!” commented a sharp American belle of mature years, “like an ugly little conscience.”
Edmondstone’s first meeting with his cousin after his return to Paris was accidental. ”

“ He has little hollows in his cheeks, and his eyes are as much too big as Bertha’s. Is the sword wearing out the scabbard, Ralph? That is what they always say about geniuses, you know.”
“Ralph has not looked well for some time,” said Mrs. Trent. “As for Bertha, I think I shall scold her a little, and M. Villefort too. She has been living too exciting a life. She is out continually. She must stay at home more and rest. It is rest she needs.”
“If you tell Arthur that Bertha looks ill “—began Jenny.
Edmondstone turned toward her sharply. “Arthur!” he repeated. “Who is Arthur?” ”

“ She talked about them, too, in a tone not too well modulated, criticising the beautifully dressed little woman, her hair, her eyes, her Greek nose and mouth, and, more than all, her indifferent expression and her manner of leaning upon the edge of her box and staring at the stage as if she did not care for, and indeed scarcely saw, what was going on upon it.
“That is the way with your American beauties,” she said. “They have no respect for things. Their people spoil them—their men especially. They consider themselves privileged to act as their whims direct. ”

“ It was not so with you once, Bertha. Don’t—don’t become that terrible thing, a fine lady, and worse still, a fine lady who is désillusionée”
It baffled him that she never appeared much moved, by his charges. Certainly she lived the life of a “fine lady,”—a brilliant life, a luxurious one, a life full of polite dissipation. Once, when in a tenderly fraternal mood, he reproached her with this also, she laughed at him frankly.
“It is absinthe,” she said. “It is my absinthe at least, and who does not drink a little absinthe—of one kind or another?” ”

“ Some of the same critics also could scarcely choose between these and his songs to Aglæ in her day, or Camille in hers. He is a young man of fine fancies, and possesses the amiable quality of being invariably passionately in earnest. As he was serious in his sentiments yesterday, so he will be to-morrow, so he is to-day.”
“To-day!” echoed Madame de Castro. “Nonsense!”
Madame Villefort did not seem to talk much. It was M. Ralph Edmondstone who conversed, and that, too, with so much of the charm of animation that it was pleasurable even to be a mere looker-on. ”

“ M. Renard’s reply of “God knows, Paris does not,” to Madame de Castro’s query as to why Madame Villefort had married her husband, contained an element of truth, and yet there were numbers of Parisian-Americans, more especially the young, well-looking, and masculine, who at the time the marriage had taken place had been ready enough with sardonic explanations.
“There are women who are avaricious enough to sell their souls,” they cried; “and the maternal Trent is one of them. The girl is only to blame for allowing herself to be bullied into the match.” ”

“ There is nothing for us beyond this point. We can only go back. We must try to forget—and be satisfied with our absinthe.”
Instead of returning to his hotel, Edmondstone found his way to the Champs Élysées, and finally to the Bois. He was too wretched to have any purpose in his wanderings. He walked rapidly, looking straight before him and seeing nobody. He scarcely understood his own fierce emotions Hitherto his fancies had brought him a vague rapture; now he experienced absolute anguish, Every past experience had become trivial. What happiness is so keen as one’s briefest pain? ”

“ Take her to the country—to Normandy—to the sea—somewhere! She will die if there is not a change. At twenty, one should be as plump as a young capon.”
A few days after this, Jenny Trent ran in upon Bertha as she lay upon a lounge, holding an open book, but with closed eyes. She had come to spend the morning, she announced. She wanted to talk—about people, about her dress, about her first ball which was to come off shortly.
“And Arthur says”—she began.
Bertha turned her head almost as Edmondstone had done. ”

“ Edmondstone answered, “and naturally have a headache.”
Bertha pointed to a wide lounge of the pouf order.
“Then go to sleep now,” she said; “M. Villefort will read. When I have a headache he often reads me to sleep, and I am always better on awaking.”
Involuntarily Edmondstone half frowned. Absurdly enough, he resented in secret this amiability on the part of M. Villefort toward his own wife. He was quite prepared to be severe upon the reading, but was surprised to be compelled to acknowledge that M. Villefort read wondrously well, and positively with hints of delicate perception. ”

“ She was new to her position, and forgot his name, and being asked who had arrived, stumbled upon this bon mot: ‘Un monsieur, Madame—le monsieur de la petite dame,’’—and, being repeated and tossed lightly from hand to hand, it has become at last an established witticism, albeit bandied under breath. ”

“ Trent’s maternal gossip about the boys’ college expenses, Bertha’s household, and Jenny’s approaching social début He was continually full of a feverish longing to hear of Bertha,—to hear her name spoken, her ingoings and out-comings discussed, her looks, her belongings.
“The fact is,” said Mrs. Trent, as the winter advanced, “I am anxious about Bertha. She does not look strong. ”

“ Bertha asked.
He was bending over the box to open it, and did not turn toward her, as he replied:—
“It is a gift for a young friend of mine,—a brace of pistols. He has before him a long journey in the East, and he is young enough to have a fancy for firearms.”
He was still examining the weapons when Bertha crossed the room on her way up-stairs, and she paused an instant to look at them.
“They are very handsome,” she said. “One could almost wear them as ornaments.” ”

“ Seeing the two women together, Edmondstone shuddered in fastidious protest.
“How could you laugh at that detestable old woman?” he exclaimed on encountering Bertha later in the evening. “I wonder that M. Villefort would permit her to talk to you. She is a wicked, cynical creature, who has the hardihood to laugh at her sins instead of repenting of them.”
“Perhaps that is the reason she is so amusing,” said Bertha.
Edmondstone answered her with gentle mournfulness.
“What!” he said. “Have you begun to say such things? ”

“ He was at his banker’s when he heard the news spoken of as the latest item from American Paris, and his start and exclamation of disgust drew forth some cynical after-comment from men who envied him.
“Who?” he said, with indiscreet impatience. “That undersized sphynx of a Villefort? Faugh!” ”