Miss Esperance

“ Albert had returned with his mother, who seemed gayer, happier than usual. Esperance went at once to speak to her and was enthusiastically congratulated on her superb bearing.
The Countess kissed Esperance whose eyes were filling with tears, and she kissed the Countess's hands with so much emotion that the lady raised the blonde head, saying tenderly, "No, no, you must not cry! We must love each other joyfully. I have never seen my son so happy, I should be jealous if I loved him less. ”

“ He talked a long time, with ardent, almost brotherly tenderness; asked when Esperance thought of making her appearance at the Comedie-Française, urging her to play "Camille," and spoke with considerable praise of Musset's heroine.
"The character of the young girl seems to have been caught alive. I criticize her only for her hardness."
"But," Esperance replied quickly, "that hardness is simply a light veneer, the result of her education. ”

“ I am going to rest," replied Esperance.
Genevieve and Maurice sat down in the grove. After she had told him what had happened, she added, "What seems to me to make it really serious is that I believe the Duke to be in earnest."
"Love and flirtation often look alike," said the young man shrugging his shoulders.
"I don't think so," said the girl with conviction, and continued sadly, "Esperance is fighting against this infatuation with all her strength, but I am very uneasy. And if the Duke should love her enough to offer to marry her!"
"You think that likely?"
"What can resist love? ”

“ He was very fond of this fine fellow, and at the same time felt great sympathy for the Duke. He understood perfectly well why Esperance should prefer him to the Count, but at the same time he blamed her a little for causing so many complications. When he saw her so fresh and charming beside Albert, he grew more disturbed. Genevieve quietly drew him aside.
"You are getting excited, Maurice, and I see clearly that you are blaming Esperance, but let me tell you, dear love, that you are unjust. At this moment Esperance is walking in a dream. Nothing real exists for her. ”

“ The visit from the amiable Duchess rather disconcerted Albert, and Jean, and Maurice and Genevieve. Everything seemed like the warring of an implacable destiny. All four felt absolutely impotent.
The drive was stimulating. Esperance drew life at every breath. They could watch the colour coming back into her cheeks.
As the carriage came out into a clearing, the Duke de Morlay rode wildly by. His horse was covered with sweat and trembling so that he had some difficulty in mastering it. The Duke inquired for Esperance's health and decided that it must be excellent from her looks. ”

“ I know he is a gallant gentleman, a fine musician, and a splendid athlete; I recognize that he is very generous and that he is entirely unselfish—for these I greatly respect him, but these qualities alone have nothing to do with love."
"He is a very good-looking man," said Genevieve.
"His arms are too long and he has not any decided colour. His face, his hair, his eyes are all of a neutral tint which you cannot define."
"But handsome men are very rare!"
Esperance did not answer.
"There is the Duke de Morlay-La-Branche, too. Do you like him any better?"
The moon shone full on Esperance's face. ”

“ Then, turning towards Albert, "I drink to the line of little soldiers that you will give to Belgium, my boy."
The Count became scarlet. Esperance dropped her eyes. Maurice could hardly restrain his desire to laugh.
"Do not forget that life is a battle," continued the General. "Do not shut yourself up in your happiness, but be always on your guard...!"
"I drink to you, Lady Esperance, who bear a name of hope for the future, for you will certainly understand that the most beautiful role to play is that of wife and mother, which has nothing to do with your theatrical fictions...." ”

“ No one noticed his pallor when he entered the hôtel. He went to Jane's room again, and there, lying back in a low chair, he looked about with sad eyes.
Suddenly he saw a panel slowly open in the wall. He was not afraid. Esperance did not know the sensation, and now he simply expected some revelation. He instantly knew that this was the path by which Jane had been taken away. He rose and entered the dark corridor. He had no light, and the door at once closed behind him; but he had inherited his father's singular power of seeing in the dark.
He discovered the stairs, and began to descend them. ”

“ The Director was most complimentary to the young actress and asked what rôle she would care to choose for her debut. Esperance proclaimed her preference for "Dona Sol" in Hernani or "Camille" in "On ne badine pas avec l'amour."
Her heart was filled with emotion as she was leaving the great house of which in future she would be a part. The Place du Carrousel, the perspective of the Tuileries, and the Champs Elysées seemed more beautiful than ever before. The passers-by were charming. Everything, everywhere, spoke only of happiness and hope.
"Mama, dear mama, I am so happy." ”

“ Jeanne Tordeine, of the Theatre-Française, and several other guests.
Esperance's entrance roused the curiosity of all. The Duke de Morlay-La-Branche, after conversing for a few minutes to François Darbois, whom he had met several weeks before, came up to the young girl as she was standing before the Countess Styvens, replying to the compliments the charming lady was paying her.
"I am told that you are quite a clever musician." Esperance looked up to reproach the Count for his indiscretion in speaking about her playing, but her eyes met the ardent gaze of the Duke. ”

“ CHAPTER LVI. ESPERANCE, MONTE-CRISTO'S SON.
Now let us go back to Esperance. Three days have elapsed since Jane was borne into the hôtel on the Champs-Elysées.
We find Madame Caraman deep in a conference with the person on whom she has more reliance than on any one else in the world, none other than herself! The good woman was lying on a sofa, listening to every sound which came from the room where Jane lay utterly prostrated. ”

“ Several days after this visit, Esperance received a letter from the Comedie-Française, asking her to come to the office. She turned pink. Her lovely forehead brightened for the first time in many months. ”

“ Esperance was to appear on the twentieth of December, about fifteen days after her letter reached them. All the elegant world of Paris, artistic, sensation-hunting, was waiting with delight for the appearance of the little heroine, the idol of the public. Count Styvens's death in a duel, slain by a well-known admirer of Esperance, had caused a great deal of ink to be spilled. But the devotion of the Countess towards the girl who would have been her daughter, the denials of the witnesses to the most intimate friends, asking if ... really ... between ourselves ... ”

“ When her mother returned she found her quietly reading Victor Hugo, studying "Dona Sol" in Hernani. She had not heard the opening of the door, and she started at finding her mother close beside her.
"You see, I am not going to lose any time," she said, closing the book. "Ah! mama, how happy I am, how happy!"
"Quick," said her mother, her finger to her lips. "Your father is waiting for us, ready to go out."
Esperance seized her hat and coat quickly and ran to join her father. He was sitting as if thinking, his head resting in his hands. ”

“ She had chosen, for the comedy test to study a scene from Les Femmes Savantes (the rôle of "Henriette") , and in tragedy a scene from Iphygenia. Adhemar Meydieux often came to inquire about his goddaughter's studies. He wished to hear her recite, to give her advice; but Esperance refused energetically, still remembering his former opposition against him. She would let no one hear her recitations, but her mother. Madame Darbois put all her heart into her efforts to help her daughter. Every morning she went through her work with Esperance. To her the rôle of "Henriette" was inexplicable. ”

“ After some consideration, she engaged a charming old lady, named Eleanore Frahender, who had been companion in a Russian family, and was now living in a convent in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where only trustworthy guests could be received. The old lady loved art and poetry, and as soon as she had met Esperance, was full of enthusiasm for her new duties. The young girl and she agreed in many tastes, and very soon they were great friends. ”

“ The mistress never gets a proper breakfast for those wee bairns——"
"I can well believe that," Mr. Wycherly interrupted.
"Now if you, sir" (it was surprising how fluently the 'sir' came to Elsa just then) , "would just say that you'd like your breakfast a wee thing sooner in the morning and would ask the mistress, would she no have hers wi' you for the company. Then me an' Robina'll see that the wee boys has theirs. Don't you think, sir, you'd eat more yersel', if ye was no read—readin' a' the time? If ye'd just tell the mistress that? It's dull-like, isn't it, to eat yer lane?" ”

“ In approaching near to the little island, we had the frightful spectacle of an impetuous sea which, when it had cleared the south point, opened, by its precipitate fury, a gulph which exposed to view part of the base of the rock. The dread of coming too near the land induced us to let go our anchor to windward of the Esperance, but not sufficiently within the anchoring place, to avoid falling foul of her, if our ship should drag her anchors. The danger was so much the greater, as our sheet-anchor could not hold fast the ship. ”

“ As soon as I am in her presence, I grow confused and bewildered, and do not know what I am saying, especially if I find her cross; every word she utters freezes me. You cannot imagine how haughty she can be when she chooses. If I try to talk to some one else, Esperanza has only to smile to bring me to her side at once. ”

“ How terribly quickly the weeks and months flew past for both Lady Eveline and Miss Hope. It seemed as if nothing could break the charmed net that entangled them, but Miss Hope once made the attempt.
"How very happy you must be, Lady Eveline," said she to her one day.
"Happy!" echoed the girl with a sigh and a start.
"It is so seldom when young people make a marriage of affection that the parents on both sides are so reasonable as they have been in your case," said Miss Hope with a slight accent on the word affection. ”

“ Yes, it is a sweet, a precious triumph for women like ourselves to end our woman's life in this way; to rest in an ardent, pure, devoted, complete and absolute love; above all, when we have sought it long."
"Why do you ask me to be faithful to my dearest friend?" said Madame d'Espard. "Do you think me capable of playing you some villainous trick?"
"When a woman possesses such a treasure the fear of losing it is so strong that it naturally inspires a feeling of terror. I am absurd, I know; forgive me, dear."
A few moments later the marquise departed ”

“ Sister Estelle did not approve of tears even when shed in such circumstances as these and by the pupil of her heart.
"How can I get up there and read to them," Elizabeth asked, "with our parting before me? You will help me, I know; tell me that I must do it, and that I shall do it well."
The nun smiled serenely. "Assuredly you will do it well, my dear," she said, almost lightly. "We cannot have you fail at this of all times. You will do justice to yourself and to us." ”

“ She came to Madame d’Espard’s dinner with the intention of being a gentle, simple woman, to whom life was known only through its deceptions: a woman full of soul, and calumniated, but resigned,—in short, a wounded angel.
She arrived early, so as to pose on a sofa near the fire beside Madame d’Espard, as she wished to be first seen: that is, in one of those attitudes in which science is concealed beneath an exquisite naturalness ”

“ But the more bright you are, the more we should lament to see the native lustre of your mind clouded and blemished by the faults of others. Permit me, Madam, to tell you, that to continue an intimacy with a woman of Miss Forward's character, must infallibly draw you into conveniences, which you want but to foresee to tremble at.'
'If you have the affection for me you pretend,' said she, haughtily, 'and could see the aversion I have to a censorious temper, it is yourself would have cause to tremble. I love Miss Forward, and neither know, nor will believe, any ill of her. ”

“ And so it befell that Elizabeth Hand, whose blunt ways, unlovely person, and temperament so oddly nervous and reserved, kept her from attracting any "sweetheart" of her own class, had unconsciously imbibed her mistress's theory of love. Love, pure and simple, the very deepest and highest, sweetest and most solemn thing in life: to be believed in devoutly until it came, and when it did come, to be held to, firmly, faithfully, with a single-minded, settled constancy, till death. ”

“ And I must go back to Cambridge at the end of this week. I must get an exeat, and come up to London on our wedding-day, and take you home in the evening. I shall have a quiet home ready for my darling, far from the ken of dons and undergraduates, but within an easy distance of the 'Varsity.'
"I explained to her that our marriage must be a secret till I came of age next year, or till I could find a favourable opportunity of breaking the fact to my mother.'
"'Will she mind? Will she be angry?' asked Esperanza. ”

“ Many an antiquated Miss, proud of past conquests, and unable yet to believe that her career of triumph was, indeed, ended, would turn up an envious nose, and utter a sharp sneer at the forwardness and hoyden mirth of that pert Mistress Agnes, or at the coldness and inanimate smile of the fair heiress; but the sneer, even were it the sneer of a duke's or a minister's daughter, fell harmless, or yet worse, drew forth a prompt defence of the unjustly assailed beauty. ”