The young country-girl shuddered. She alone knew the fiery, impetuous nature of her mistress. She alone was initiated into the mysteries of a soul rich with enthusiasm, into the secret emotions of a being who, up to this time, had seen life pass her like a shadow she could not grasp, eager as she was to do so. After sowing broadcast with full hands and harvesting nothing, this woman was still virgin in soul, but irritated by a multitude of baffled desires. Weary of a struggle without an adversary, she had reached in her despair to the point of preferring good to evil, if it came in the form of enjoyment; evil to good, if it offered her some poetic emotion; misery to mediocrity, as something nobler and higher; the gloomy and mysterious future of present death to a life without hopes or even without sufferings. Never in any heart was so much powder heaped ready for the spark, never were so many riches for love to feed on; no daughter of Eve was ever moulded, with a greater mixture of gold in her clay. Francine, like an angel of earth, watched over this being whose perfections she adored, believing that she obeyed a celestial mandate in striving to bring that spirit back among the choir of seraphim whence it was banished for the sin of pride.
“There is the clock-tower of Alencon,” said the horseman, riding up to the carriage.
“I see it,” replied the young lady, in a cold tone.
“Ah, well,” he said, turning away with all the signs of servile submission, in spite of his disappointment.
“Go faster,” said the lady to the postilion. “There is no longer any danger; go at a fast trot, or even a gallop, if you can; we are almost into Alencon.”
As the carriage passed the commandant, she called out to him, in a sweet voice:--
“We will meet at the inn, commandant. Come and see me.”
“Yes, yes,” growled the commandant. “‘The inn’! ‘Come and see me’! Is that how you speak to an officer in command of the army?” and he shook his fist at the carriage, which was now rolling rapidly along the road.
“Don’t be vexed, commandant, she has got your rank as general up her sleeve,” said Corentin, laughing, as he endeavored to put his horse into a gallop to overtake the carriage.
“I sha’n’t let myself be fooled by any such folks as they,” said Hulot to his two friends, in a growling tone. “I’d rather throw my general’s coat into that ditch than earn it out of a bed. What are these birds after? Have you any idea, either of you?”