Moriaz greatly resembled a certain person who had played a certain role in a certain adventure that she undertook to narrate.She had scarcely finished this recital when she entered on another.Mme.de Lorcy was on thorns.She knew by experience that the anecdotes of Princess Gulof were ordinarily somewhat indelicate and ill-suited to maiden ears.She watched Antoinette anxiously, and, when she saw the approach of an especially objectionable passage, she was suddenly seized with a fit of coughing.The princess, comprehending the significance of that, made an effort to gloss over, but her glossings were very transparent.Mme.de Lorcy coughed anew, and the princess ended by losing patience, and, brusquely interrupting herself, exclaimed: "And this, that, and the other, etc.Thus ended the adventure."Mlle.Moriaz listened with an astonished air, not in the least understanding these attacks of coughing and these interruptions, nor divining the significance of the constant repetition of "this, that, and the other, etc." Princess Gulof struck her as a very eccentric and unpleasantly brusque person; she even suspected her of being slightly deranged or at least rather crack-brained; yet she was pleased with her for being present upon this especial occasion and sparing her a /tete-a-tete/ with Mme.de Lorcy with its disagreeable explanations and unpleasant discussions.
She remained nearly an hour, planted on a chair, watching with a sort of stupor the turning of the fan of this word-mill, whose clapper kept up such an incessant noise.After having criticised to her heart's content her neighbours, including under that title emperors and grand-dukes, and having abundantly multiplied the et ceteras, Princess Gulof suddenly turned the conversation to physiology: this science, whose depths she believed herself to have fathomed, was, in her estimation, the secret of everything, the Alpha and Omega of human life.She exposed certain materialistic views, making use of expressions that shocked the modest and delicate ears of Mlle.Moriaz.The astonishment the latter had at first experienced became now blended with horror and disgust; she judged that her visit had lasted long enough, and she proceeded to beat a retreat, which Mme.de Lorcy made no effort to prevent.
Upon arriving at Cormeilles, her carriage crossed with a young man on horseback, who with his head bowed down allowed his animal full liberty to take his own course.This young man trembled when a clear, soprano voice, which he preferred to the most beautiful music in the world, cried to him, "Where are you going, Camille?"He bowed over his horse's neck, drew down his hat over his eyes, and replied, "To Maisons.""Do not go there.I have just left because there is a dreadful old woman there who says horrid things." Then Mlle.Moriaz added, in a queenly tone, "You cannot pass--you are my prisoner."She obliged him to turn back; ten minutes later she had alighted from her coupe, he had sprung from his saddle, and they were seated side by side on a rustic bench.
A few days previous M.Langis had met M.Moriaz, who had complained bitterly of being forsaken by him as well as by Mme.de Lorcy, and who had extracted from him the promise to come and see him.Camille had kept this promise.Had he chosen well his time of doing so? The truth is, he had been both rejoiced and heart-broken to learn that Mlle.
Moriaz was absent.Man is a strange combination of contradictions, especially a man who is in love.In the same way he had bestowed both blessings and imprecations upon Heaven for permitting him to meet Antoinette.During some moments he had lost countenance, but had quickly recovered himself; he had formed the generous resolution to act out consistently his role of friend and brother.He had acquitted himself of it so well at Saint Moritz, that Antoinette believed him cured of the caprice of a day with which she had inspired him and which she had never taken seriously.
"The last time I saw you," said she, "you dropped a remark that pained me, but I am pleased to think that you did not mean to do so.""I am a terrible culprit," he rejoined, "and I smite myself upon the breast therefore.I was wanting in respect to your idol.""Fortunately, my idol knew nothing about it, and, if he had known, Iwould have appeased him by saying: 'Pardon this young man; he does not always know what he is saying.' ""He even seldom knows it; but what help is there for it? A man given to fainting always did seem a curiosity to me.I know we should endeavour to conquer our prejudices; every country has its customs, and, since Poland is a country that pleases you, I will make an effort to see only its good sides.""Now that is the right way to talk.I hope this very day to reconcile you with Count Larinski; stay and dine with us--he will be here very soon; the first duty of the people whom I love is to love one another."M.Langis at first energetically declined accepting this invitation;Antoinette insisted: he ended by bowing in sign of obedience.Youth has a taste for suffering.
