White Lies [106]
as I do her; it is ridiculous to expect such a thing."
"And do you think I could bear to play second fiddle to her all my life?"
"I don't ask you. Go and play first trumpet to some other lady."
"You speak your wishes so plainly now, I have nothing to do but to obey."
He kissed her hand and went away disconsolately.
Rose, instead of going to Josephine, her determination to do which had mainly caused the quarrel, sat sadly down, and leaned her head on her hand. "I am cruel. I am ungrateful. He has gone away broken-hearted. And what shall I do without him?--little fool! I love him better than he loves me. He will never forgive me. I have wounded his vanity; and they are vainer than we are. If we meet at dinner I will be so kind to him, he will forget it all. No! Edouard will not come to dinner. He is not a spaniel that you can beat, and then whistle back again. Something tells me I have lost him, and if I have, what shall I do? I will write him a note. I will ask him to forgive me."
She sat down at the table, and took a sheet of notepaper and began to write a few conciliatory words. She was so occupied in making these kind enough, and not too kind, that a light step approached her unobserved. She looked up and there was Edouard. She whipped the paper off the table.
A look of suspicion and misery crossed Edouard's face.
Rose caught it, and said, "Well, am I to be affronted any more?"
"No, Rose. I came back to beg you to forget what passed just now," said he.
Rose's eye flashed; his return showed her her power. She abused it directly.
"How can I forget it if you come reminding me?"
"Dear Rose, now don't be so unkind, so cruel--I have not come back to tease you, sweet one. I come to know what I can do to please you; to make you love me again?" and he was about to kneel graciously on one knee.
"I'll tell you. Don't come near me for a month."
Edouard started up, white as ashes with mortification and wounded love.
"This is how you treat me for humbling myself, when it is you that ought to ask forgiveness."
"Why should I ask what I don't care about?"
"What DO you care about?--except that sister of yours? You have no heart. And on this cold-blooded creature I have wasted a love an empress might have been proud of inspiring. I pray Heaven some man may sport with your affections, you heartless creature, as you have played with mine, and make you suffer what I suffer now!"
And with a burst of inarticulate grief and rage he flung out of the room.
Rose sank trembling on the sofa a little while: then with a mighty effort rose and went to comfort her sister.
Edouard came no more to Beaurepaire.
There is an old French proverb, and a wise one, "Rien n'est certain que l'imprevu;" it means you can make sure of nothing but this, that matters will not turn as you feel sure they will. And, even for this reason, you, who are thinking of suicide because trade is declining, speculation failing, bankruptcy impending, or your life going to be blighted forever by unrequited love--DON'T DO IT. Whether you are English, American, French, or German, listen to a man that knows what is what, and DON'T DO IT. I tell you none of those horrors, when they really come, will affect you as you fancy they will. The joys we expect are not a quarter so bright, nor the troubles half so dark as we think they will be. Bankruptcy coming is one thing, come is quite another: and no heart or life was ever really blighted at twenty years of age. The love-sick girls that are picked out of the canal alive, all, without exception, marry another man, have brats, and get to screech with laughter when they think of sweetheart No. 1, generally a blockhead, or else a blackguard, whom they were fools enough to wet their clothes for, let alone kill their souls. This happens INVARIABLY. The love-sick girls that are picked out of the canal dead have fled from a year's misery to eternal pain, from grief that time never failed to cure, to anguish incurable. In this world "Rien n'est certain que
"And do you think I could bear to play second fiddle to her all my life?"
"I don't ask you. Go and play first trumpet to some other lady."
"You speak your wishes so plainly now, I have nothing to do but to obey."
He kissed her hand and went away disconsolately.
Rose, instead of going to Josephine, her determination to do which had mainly caused the quarrel, sat sadly down, and leaned her head on her hand. "I am cruel. I am ungrateful. He has gone away broken-hearted. And what shall I do without him?--little fool! I love him better than he loves me. He will never forgive me. I have wounded his vanity; and they are vainer than we are. If we meet at dinner I will be so kind to him, he will forget it all. No! Edouard will not come to dinner. He is not a spaniel that you can beat, and then whistle back again. Something tells me I have lost him, and if I have, what shall I do? I will write him a note. I will ask him to forgive me."
She sat down at the table, and took a sheet of notepaper and began to write a few conciliatory words. She was so occupied in making these kind enough, and not too kind, that a light step approached her unobserved. She looked up and there was Edouard. She whipped the paper off the table.
A look of suspicion and misery crossed Edouard's face.
Rose caught it, and said, "Well, am I to be affronted any more?"
"No, Rose. I came back to beg you to forget what passed just now," said he.
Rose's eye flashed; his return showed her her power. She abused it directly.
"How can I forget it if you come reminding me?"
"Dear Rose, now don't be so unkind, so cruel--I have not come back to tease you, sweet one. I come to know what I can do to please you; to make you love me again?" and he was about to kneel graciously on one knee.
"I'll tell you. Don't come near me for a month."
Edouard started up, white as ashes with mortification and wounded love.
"This is how you treat me for humbling myself, when it is you that ought to ask forgiveness."
"Why should I ask what I don't care about?"
"What DO you care about?--except that sister of yours? You have no heart. And on this cold-blooded creature I have wasted a love an empress might have been proud of inspiring. I pray Heaven some man may sport with your affections, you heartless creature, as you have played with mine, and make you suffer what I suffer now!"
And with a burst of inarticulate grief and rage he flung out of the room.
Rose sank trembling on the sofa a little while: then with a mighty effort rose and went to comfort her sister.
Edouard came no more to Beaurepaire.
There is an old French proverb, and a wise one, "Rien n'est certain que l'imprevu;" it means you can make sure of nothing but this, that matters will not turn as you feel sure they will. And, even for this reason, you, who are thinking of suicide because trade is declining, speculation failing, bankruptcy impending, or your life going to be blighted forever by unrequited love--DON'T DO IT. Whether you are English, American, French, or German, listen to a man that knows what is what, and DON'T DO IT. I tell you none of those horrors, when they really come, will affect you as you fancy they will. The joys we expect are not a quarter so bright, nor the troubles half so dark as we think they will be. Bankruptcy coming is one thing, come is quite another: and no heart or life was ever really blighted at twenty years of age. The love-sick girls that are picked out of the canal alive, all, without exception, marry another man, have brats, and get to screech with laughter when they think of sweetheart No. 1, generally a blockhead, or else a blackguard, whom they were fools enough to wet their clothes for, let alone kill their souls. This happens INVARIABLY. The love-sick girls that are picked out of the canal dead have fled from a year's misery to eternal pain, from grief that time never failed to cure, to anguish incurable. In this world "Rien n'est certain que