She knew nothing of all this; why should she? I loved my
love.
"You can fancy from this incident of my youth how happy I was
merely to live in the sphere of your existence, to groom your
horse, to find the new-coined gold for your purse, to prepare the
splendor of your dinners and your balls, to see you eclipsing the
elegance of those whose fortunes were greater than yours, and all
by my own good management. Ah! with what ardor I have ransacked
Paris when Adam would say to me, 'SHE wants this or that.' It was
a joy such as I can never express to you. You wished for a trifle
at one time which kept me seven hours in a cab scouring the city;
and what delight it was to weary myself for you. Ah! when I saw
you, unseen by you, smiling among your flowers, I could forget
that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my
head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet
had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was
balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say
persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles.
"I MUST tell you these things to explain the strange presumption
of my involuntary thoughts,--I would have died rather than avow it
until now.
"You will remember those few days of curiosity when you wished to
know the man who performed the household miracles you had
sometimes noticed.
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