What,
after all, is a thought unexpressed?
After Clementine's little speech, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and his
sister exchanged a singular glance, embracing their niece, Comte Adam,
and Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place only in
France and Italy,--the two regions of the world (all courts excepted)
where eyes can say everything. To communicate to the eye the full
power of the soul, to give it the value of speech, needs either the
pressure of extreme servitude, or complete liberty. Adam, the Marquis
du Rouvre, and Clementine did not observe this luminous by-play of the
old coquette and the old diplomatist, but Paz, the faithful watchdog,
understood its meaning. It was, we must remark, an affair of two
seconds; but to describe the tempest it roused in the captain's soul
would take far too much space in this brief history.
"What!" he said to himself, "do the aunt and uncle think I might be
loved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--"
Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, all
equally powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would
have his day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the
story of the Polish insurrection in noble words, being questioned
about it by the diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine
hanging upon his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting that
Adam too, after sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been an
exile.
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