She made a sign to Captain Merle, who was just then reaching the brow of the hill behind her. The marquis was taken unawares by her sudden action.
“Stop!” he cried, in a tone of despair that was well acted.
This singular caprice of a girl for whom he would at that instant have thrown away his life so surprised him that he invented, on the spur of the moment, a fatal fiction by which to hide his name and satisfy the curiosity of his companion.
“You have almost guessed the truth,” he said. “I am an _emigre_, condemned to death, and my name is Vicomte de Bauvan. Love of my country has brought me back to France to join my brother. I hope to be taken off the list of _emigres_ through the influence of Madame de Beauharnais, now the wife of the First Consul; but if I fail in this, I mean to die on the soil of my native land, fighting beside my friend Montauran. I am now on my way secretly, by means of a passport he has sent me, to learn if any of my property in Brittany is still unconfiscated.”
While the young man spoke Mademoiselle de Verneuil examined him with a penetrating eye. She tried at first to doubt his words, but being by nature confiding and trustful, she slowly regained an expression of serenity, and said eagerly, “Monsieur, are you telling me the exact truth?”
“Yes, the exact truth,” replied the young man, who seemed to have no conscience in his dealings with women.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil gave a deep sigh, like a person who returns to life.
“No,” she said; “but I could not make you understand my meaning. I was not willing that _you_ should meet the dangers from which I will try to protect him,--since he is your friend.”
“Who told you that Montauran was in danger?”
“Ah, monsieur, even if I had not come from Paris, where his enterprise is the one thing talked of, the commandant at Alencon said enough to show his danger.”
“Then let me ask you how you expect to save him from it.”
“Suppose I do not choose to answer,” she replied, with the haughty air that women often assume to hide an emotion. “What right have you to know my secrets?”
“Already?” she said. “No, you do not love me. I am only an object of passing gallantry to you,--that is all. I am clear-sighted; did I not penetrate your disguise at once? A woman who knows anything of good society could not be misled, in these days, by a pupil of the Polytechnique who uses choice language, and conceals as little as you do the manners of a _grand seigneur_ under the mask of a Republican. There is a trifle of powder left in your hair, and a fragrance of nobility clings to you which a woman of the world cannot fail to detect. Therefore, fearing that the man whom you saw accompanying me, who has all the shrewdness of a woman, might make the same discovery, I sent him away. Monsieur, let me tell you that a true Republican officer just from the Polytechnique would not have made love to me as you have done, and would not have taken me for a pretty adventuress. Allow me, Monsieur de Bauvan, to preach you a little sermon from a woman’s point of view. Are you too juvenile to know that of all the creatures of my sex the most difficult to subdue is that same adventuress,--she whose price is ticketed and who is weary of pleasure. That sort of woman requires, they tell me, constant seduction; she yields only to her own caprices; any attempt to please her argues, I should suppose, great conceit on the part of a man. But let us put aside that class of women, among whom you have been good enough to rank me; you ought to understand that a young woman, handsome, brilliant, and of noble birth (for, I suppose, you will grant me those advantages), does not sell herself, and can only be won by the man who loves her in one way. You understand me? If she loves him and is willing to commit a folly, she must be justified by great and heroic reasons. Forgive me this logic, rare in my sex; but for the sake of your happiness,--and my own,” she added, dropping her head,--“I will not allow either of us to deceive the other, nor will I permit you to think that Mademoiselle de Verneuil, angel or devil, maid or wife, is capable of being seduced by commonplace gallantry.”