DIANE DE BRETEUILLE.-CONCLUSION. THE business which Bob had insisted that I should lose no time in settling was effectually disposed of in a very few minutes; for, hearing from him on arrival at the Office, the day after the events recorded in the last chapter, that a vacancy had suddenly occurred at some place in China, and that he had considered it a wonderful piece of luck for me, inasmuch as if I had volunteered to go to that out-of-the-way country, it might advance my promotion in the service, and at any rate ensure my going through a disagreeable necessity before I was too old to bear it with equanimity, --I thanked him for his very friendly consideration, but stubbornly refused to be removed from Paris, which was to me a paradise, on any consideration-least of all, through any effort of mine. Bob laughed, and exclaimed, "Out with it, old fellow! What's the attraction?" "Wait and you will see." "Is she then coming over?" "It might be the other way." "If you mean," said Bob, "that I am going to cross the Channel to see your latest admiration, you are greatly mistaken. I should have something to do were I to travel to and fro each time you had fallen in love." "But it is serious this time," I said, with just a slight accent of pain in my voice, which struck Bob. "You do not mean it," he said. "I do." VI. "A French girl?" "So it is; and, Bob, when the day comes, you will be my best man, will you not?" 66 Best man," said Bob, "often means greatest fool. I am not sure I care to be the latter." "Never mind what you are, or will be, or may be," I said; "be what I want you to be, and I can say this much, no man will have ever had a chance of seeing his friend married to so lovely a girl." "I never knew French girls were lovely," provokingly remarked Bob. "Be my best man, and you will be able to judge for yourself," I said. "So you give up China," continued Bob, while docketing some silly despatch, and preparing it for those Office pigeon-holes, which contain more wisdom and trash combined than any other official department in the country. "I do." "For the purpose of marrying a French girl?" "Yes." "By the way, when is the marriage to take place?" "That is not fixed." "Well," said Bob, somewhat sententiously, "a hitch is a hitch in England, whatever it may be in France." I was irritated and annoyed that he should not have jumped at the 'But surely you are not think- prospect of being my best man, ing of marrying?" "I am." thinking all the while of the enormous favour I was conferring on my friend in asking him to stand at my side when the girl I loved put her hand into mine, and he would have a right to look upon himself as having contributed to our joy, our happiness, our union. Bob either did not see it in this light, or was slow to perceive any particular advantage in acceding to my wishes. He therefore lit a cigarette, and, having done so, turned the conversation by asking me how long I would remain in town. "Let us do a theatre together," he said," and dine at the St. James's Club, where just at present there is a very decent cook." "My dear Bob," I said, "I want, no dinner, I will not go to the play, and I require an answer to my question." "But there is a hitch," he said; "time enough when that is arranged to give you an answer. By the way, what is the nature of the hitch?" while putting on his hat rather snappishly replied, "Of course I will, if you wish it," and asking me whether I was not going his way, without waiting for a reply, walked out. I followed him, and having gone together as far as Pall Mall, we parted. I felt as if I had done wonders towards the advancement of my marriage with Diane. I had secured myself against promotion, and therefore displacement, and I had a best man ready to give me away to a girl who could not be mine just yet because of a terrible hitch, as Bob called it-viz., because she herself was being given away by her father to another man. The idea, horrible as it was, filled me with no concern whatever. I had such faith in Diane's love and loyalty, such implicit confidence in the strength of our mutual understanding, that my refusing promotion, so as not to be away from where she lived, appeared to me only natural; while, if there was a little self-sacrifice in it, I was the better pleased for being permitted to lay it at the shrine. of my divinity. On the other one else care for hand, I derived immense consolation from Bob's acceptance; and it seemed to me as if it were a good omen that I should have secured so important an element in the marriage ceremony on my first day away from that Paris which held all I cared for in life. "I cannot tell you." Say you will not tell." "I had rather not." "Does the lady care for some one else?" "No." "Or some her?" 66 Everybody must care for her who knows her." This seemed to me the most dexterous inanner of avoiding the question. "Is it about settlements?" "No." "Then I give it up," said Bob; "and now I am off to Hyde Park for a whiff of air. This place is stuffy to a degree, and I shall die if I remain here another minute." "Bob," I said, "be serious: promise me what I ask. It will give me a little comfort, and I need it." The kind-hearted Bob noted the earnest tone of my request, and Nothing of any consequence occurred for some days; but when at the end of a week I was beginning to wonder why Madame de Chantalis had not written, I found three letters at the Club, all in different handwritings, easily recognisable, however, and all three bearing the Paris post-mark. The first I opened was the one I looked to to give me most pleasure. It was from Mademoiselle Garoux," that governess's post," which Diane had once told me might occasionally be used. "MONSIEUR,"-wrote the faithful governess,"I have little to say, for Mademoiselle is not aware that I am writing; but knowing her feelings and yours, I cannot but congratulate you on having secured so plucky, so staunch, and so true an affection. "Nothing in her manner towards her parents betrays the least disrespect, the slightest wish even to disobey their commands. Towards M. de Maupert she is as reserved, as it is possible to be without wounding les convenances, and it must be allowed that his own manner towards her is perfect. He attempts no more than marked politeness, and even the cold reception of his attentions never induces a reproach. What annoyed Diane more than anything at first, is the fact that while he must see how distasteful to her is the courtship he has permission to pay her, he never once has asked her whether she endorses her parent's consent to his being her fiancé, and that this gave her no opportunity of appealing to his honour not to pursue an engagement so palpably distasteful to her; but she seems now to hope that he will continue as he is doing, as she does not want to owe anything to his generosity, having, as she tells me with her sweet laugh, a little plan of mine own.' "Mon Dieu, how I wish matters were otherwise than they are! but that will come right, I am convinced. "I must say a word about your conversation with the Marquis the day you left Paris. It made a deep impression on the good old man, who never speaks of you otherwise than with kindly expressions of regard; but la Marquise is not on your side. She does not enter into the noble aspirations which move you, because she cannot comprehend them; and as to her daughter, her sole argument is, I do not see why she should be treated otherwise than others, and I think it very unbecoming for a girl of her position to affect the ways and manners of another country than her own. "Diane never answers, and her silence serves the purpose of allowing sad conversations to drop; but after one of these distressing moments Diane comes to my room for consolation, and then I can assure you, we discuss all your faults and merits 'de cœur joie,' and we generally end by agreeing that your mutual love must be consecrated at last by your mutual suffering, and crowned by your mutual reward. "Diane has authorised me to write to you occasionally on my own behalf, if I care to; but she has told me never to send you a message from herself. 'He knows all I can possibly say to him,' she says and our next message must be to one another in the presence of witnesses.' whether you care to talk to me, well-expressed but sorrowful line or remain away from your friend, of poetry. "RAYMOND." The third was an anonymous production. It contained only a verse of Gresset I left for Paris that evening, having replied to both letters, and borne with me the anonymous quotation. I got to Paris on Sunday morn "Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les ing, the second Sunday since Diane roses L'espace d'un matin.” Taken all together, the letters had produced an uncomfortable and depressing feeling. I began to fear that the silence which the Marquis had enjoined on me, and which, for Diane's sake, I was so anxious to preserve, was about to be broken, and this distressed me. Then I wondered how this could be. The Chantalis knew nothing except the broad fact that we loved, and were not allowed to love in peace; but even if Diane had told them more than I had, their family ties would have sufficiently ensured their discretion. The Count de Maupert had no doubt been told all by both Diane and her father, as these two highminded natures would not have borne for a moment the idea of being disloyal to friend or foe; but surely the Count would not, nor could, improve his position by showing up the girl he wished to marry. Again the argument was good, and even stronger as applied to Diane's mother. How, then, could this matter of the roses have been talked about? "I have it!" I exclaimed all at once. "The porters at the Hotel Breteuille must have spread the report. What a fool I was to ask for these flowers, instead of waiting till they were sent to me! My God! what have I done?" Yes, Raymond is right. I shall return to Paris without delay. The rose shall live more than the space of a morning, I thought, as I commented to myself on this had been given to M. de Maupert by her parents, and had given her heart to me. Though resolved to be true to my promise to the Marquis, yet I could not resist going to the church I knew Diane usually frequented, on the chance of catching a glimpse of her; but instead of her dear graceful little person, I saw her mother kneeling near the high altar, with Monsieur de Maupert at her side, and I heard the banns of marriage between Diane de Breteuille and le Comte de Maupert proclaimed from the pulpit for the "second time." They have lost no time, I thought, and one more Sunday must bring matters to a crisis. But my heart sank within me, and I ran out of the church. Once in the street it struck me that it was curious Diane should not have accompanied her mother to the parish church; but a moment's reflection made me understand that in these days of trial the poor girl would naturally avoid, if possible, a church from the pulpit of which words were given out to the congregation that portended so much to herself and me. Involuntarily, though instinctively, I directed my steps to St Thomas d'Aquin, near the Rue du Bac, and arrived in time to see an angel rise from her prayers at the high altar where she had heard mass, and asked the Almighty · himself to lay upon us both His merciful hands, and b. ing us out of our trouble, and come and kneel at our Lady's altar to beg her gentle intercession in our behalf. her reliance that I would not do anything her father might have cause to reproach me with. When she had left the church, I went to the chair she had knelt on, and I prayed as I never had prayed before, as never a man of twenty-five has deemed it necessary to pray before. When I left St Thomas d'Aquin, I felt a better, Of course, in the afternoon my first preoccupation was to see Raymond de Chantalis. I found him at the club, and as he was not going to Chantilly races, we determined to have a walk together. To see this graceful little thing kneel; to watch her pretty little hands cover her beautiful face; to note the lithesome figure bend in humble devotional attitude before the mother of the Most Holy, and offer her a child's simple prayer, that, provided it were the will of her divine Son, she, who was a calmer, and a more contented never implored in vain, might man than I had for years. bring to her relief her wonderfully powerful intercession, and obtain from Him the grace of allowing this great misery to pass away; to behold this inexpressibly touching spectacle, and to feel that the child in her simplicity, the girl in her beauty, and the woman in her calm steady resolve were mine, and mine alone, produced so great an impression that I had to support myself against the nearest column least I should faint, so moved was I by the scene before me, so stirred by the inward feeling it produced, and so proud in the knowledge of my triumph even in that hour of helplessness. She moved, and her head being raised, a ray of sun through one of the latticed windows came down upon her golden-brown hair, as if in answer to her prayer. It lit up that beautiful head with all the glory of its brightness; and as she made a sign to her governess by her side that it was time to go, I felt that her prayer had been answered, together with a craving to kneel at the spot where she had knelt, and to ask what she had asked. I hid behind the column. No power on earth could have made me reveal myself at that moment. It was not so much the promise I had made, as the fear of insulting that beautiful trust which the girl was evincing, both in the efficacy of her appeals to Heaven, and in After his usual bantering remarks had been administered, he said that on the Saturday after I left, Diane's father had been to see him, and seemed apparently in great dudgeon about some roses which his daughter had sent me. "What about that?" had said Raymond. "A great deal," had replied the Marquis. "Well," had answered Raymond, "if you cannot allow your daughter to fulfil a promise publicly made to a man you did not refuse to meet at dinner at my house, you cannot expect her to look at her promise as lightly as you do. The girl has her father's love of truth and his notions of the obligations of politeness; and I wonder at the father being so blind as to his own merits reflected in his daughter." "Capital!" I said; the old Marquis reply? "what did "He replied that the present Imperial régime had upset every notion of propriety, decorum, and right in France; that the old nobility of France was not a jot better than the Imperialists-nay, rather worse, for they were imita |