One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre. G. P. R. James
for any offence, it would be for that Men claim the right, and die without a fear; and why should not we have the same privilege? They, when their honour is assailed, could clear themselves without revenge; they could call their comrades to judge of their conduct; but, with us, the very whisper is destruction; and no proof of innocence ever gives us back that pure, untarnished name which is our only honour; we can have no exculpation, we can have no redress, and vengeance is all that is left us."
Eugenie was silent, and Beatrice gazed upon her, for a moment or two, with a smile, adding, at last, "But no--no, Eugenie, such thoughts and such feelings are not for you. Your nation, your education, your country, will not let you feel as I feel, or think as I think; and yet, Eugenie, we love each other," she added, twining her graceful arm through that of her fair friend, "and yet we love each other--is it not so?"
"Indeed, it is!" replied Eugenie de Menancourt, turning towards her with a warm smile. "Your company, your affection, your sympathy, dear Beatrice, have been my only consolations since I came within the walls of this hateful city; and all I wish is that I could on some points make you think as I do. I wish it selfishly, and yet for your sake, Beatrice; for, if I could succeed, I should not tremble every moment for your happiness and for your peace, as I do now."
"Thank you, thank you for the wish, dear friend!" replied Beatrice, with more melancholy than mirth in her smile; "thank you, most sincerely, for the wish! but still it is in vain. You can never, with all your kind eloquence, make a wild, ardent, passionate Italian girl, a calm, gentle, yielding being like yourself, all charity and half Huguenot. It is in vain, it is in vain. But you speak of happiness, Eugenie, as if I knew what happiness is. Now listen to me, and you shall hear more of Beatrice of Ferrara than ever you have yet done. There is a subject, I know, on which we have both thought often, and on which we have wished often to speak--I know it, Eugenie! I know it! I have heard it in half-spoken words; I have read it in your manner, and in your tone; I have seen it in your eyes--that, often, often, when we have talked of other scenes and other days, you have longed to ask what is Beatrice of Ferrara to Philip d'Aubin, and what is he to her? Nay, I dream not that you love him, Eugenie; I know better--I know that you love him not; and I feel that Philip d'Aubin, with all his splendid qualities, with all his energies of mind, and graces of person, is the last man on earth that Eugenie de Menancourt could love."
She paused a moment, gazed thoughtfully in her friend's face, and then, leaning her head upon Eugenie's shoulder, while she took her hand in hers, she added, in a low tone and with a deep sigh--"But it is not so with Beatrice of Ferrara!"
A bright blush rushed over her cheek, as she spoke the words which gave to her friend the full assurance of a fact that she had long suspected, perhaps we might say had long known; and she closed her dark bright eyes, as if to avoid seeing whatever expression that confession might call into the countenance of Eugenie. The moment after, however, she started up, exclaiming eagerly, "But mistake me not! mistake me not! I have not loved unsought; I have not called upon my head the well-deserved shame of being despised for courting him who loved me not. No, Eugenie, no! although the blood that flows in these veins may be all fire, yet in my heart there is a well of icy pride--at least, so he has often called it--which would cool the warm current of my love--ay, till it froze in death!--ere the name I bear should be stained even by such a pitiful weakness as that. No! he sought me, he courted me, he lived at my feet, till the proud heart was won. Yes, Eugenie, he lived at my feet, he seemed to feed upon my smiles, till, at length, ambition and interest opened wider views, and vanity was piqued to think that Eugenie de Menancourt could be dull to such high merits as his own----"
"If ambition and interest swayed him," said Eugenie;--but her friend interrupted her ere she could finish. "Hear me out!" she cried, "hear me out, Eugenie! Ambition and interest had much to do therewith. When I and my young brother first sought this court to find protection against the injustice of my father's brother, I possessed little but a small inheritance in France, the dowry of my mother. This he well knew; and though, if there be any truth on earth, he loved me, yet, with men, Eugenie, there are passions that make even love subservient--ambition, interest, vanity, Eugenie, are men's gods!"
"But is it possible, Beatrice," cried Mademoiselle de Menancourt, "that, thinking thus of all men, and of him in particular, you can either esteem or love him, or any of his race?"
"Oh, yes, Eugenie! oh, yes!" she replied. "Love is a tyrant--not a slave: we cannot bind him to the chariot wheels of reason; we cannot make him bow his neck beneath the yoke of judgment. On the contrary, we can but yield and obey. There is but one power on earth that can restrain him, Eugenie--Virtue! but everything else is vain. And, oh! how many ways have we of deceiving ourselves! The sun will cease to rise, Eugenie--summer and winter, night and day, forget their course, ere love, in the heart of woman, wants a wile to cheat her belief to what she wishes. Even now, Eugenie, even now, I believe and hope; and I fancy often that, though misled by things whose emptiness he will soon discover, the time will come when Love will re-assert his empire in a heart that is naturally noble. It may be all in vain!" she added, with a deep sigh; "it may be all in vain! yet, who would willingly put out the last faint, lingering flame that flickers on Hope's altar?"
"Not I!" said Eugenie, echoing her friend's sigh; "not I, indeed!--Would that he were worthy of you, Beatrice! Would that he were worthy of you!" she added, after a momentary pause; during which, perhaps, her mind was struggling back to the real subject of their conversation from some path of association, into which it had been led by her companion's last words. "Would that he were worthy of you! but if his fickle and wayward nature could never be endured by me, who can bear much, how much less would it suit you, Beatrice, who, I am afraid, are calculated to bear but little!"
"You know not how much I have already borne, Eugenie," replied Beatrice; "you know not how much love can bear: though, yes, perhaps you do," she added, in a lighter tone; "at least, there are those who know well how much--how very much--they could bear for love of Eugenie de Menancourt."
The warm blood spread red and glowing over Eugenie's fair face. "I know not whom you mean, Beatrice," she said, gravely: "I know none that love me; and few that are capable of loving at all--if you speak of men."
"Nay, ask me not his name!" said Beatrice, the gaiety of her tone increasing, as she marked, or thought she marked, a greater degree of confusion in her friend's countenance than the subject would have produced in other persons brought up regularly in the sweet and pleasant pastime of deceit. "Nay, ask me not his name! I am no maker of fair matches, nor half so politic, as this world goes, to endeavour to marry my friend to the first person that presents himself, solely to rid myself of the presence of her beauty."
"Nay, but dear Beatrice," replied Mademoiselle de Menancourt, "I know no one who has even seen that beauty, if so it must be called, for many a month: so indeed you are mistaken."
"Nay, nay, not so," answered Beatrice, smiling; "a few hours, a few minutes, a single instant, are enough, you know, Eugenie: and for the rest, indeed I am not mistaken. I would stake my life, from what I have seen--from signs infallible--that you are loved deeply, truly, with all the ardour of a first passion in a young--a very young heart."
"Pray God, it be not so!" cried Eugenie; "for it were but unhappiness to himself and to me."
"Are you so cold, then, Eugenie, that you cannot love?" asked Beatrice, with a smile; "or is that sweet heart occupied already by some one who fills it all?"
Eugenie smiled too, and shook her head; but there was once more a deep blush spread over her face; and though it might be but the generous flush of native modesty, Beatrice read in it a contradiction of her words, as she replied, "No, no, not so, indeed! Perhaps I may be cold; as yet I cannot tell, for no one has ever yet spoken to me of love whose love I could return. But, even could I do so, Beatrice, would it not be grief to both, as here I remain in the hands of others, unable to dispose of myself but as they please?"
"Out upon it, Eugenie!" cried Beatrice; "'tis your own fault if you are not your own mistress in an hour. Never was there a time in France when woman--the universal slave--was half so free."
"But what would you have me do?" demanded Eugenie. "With a thousand eyes constantly upon me, I see not how I could obtain more freedom, or dispose of myself,