"This statue," he said, "is a Saint-Ursula, ordered by a convent in the provinces. Under circ.u.mstances which it would take too long to relate, the type of this saint, the person whom I mentioned just now, was firmly fixed in my memory. I should vainly have attempted to create by my imagination another type for that saint, it could not have been so completely the expression of my thought. I therefore began to model this figure which you see from memory, then one day, madame, at Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, I saw you, and I had the superst.i.tion to believe that you were sent to me by Providence. After that, I worked from you only, and as I did not feel at liberty to ask you to come to my studio, the best I could do was to study you when we met, and I multiplied my chances of doing so. I carefully avoided knowing your name and social position, for I feared to bring you down from the ideal and materialize you."

"Oh! I have often seen you following us," said Nais, with her clever little air.

How little we know children, and their turn for observation! As for my husband, it seemed to me that he ought to have p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at this tale of the daring manner in which his wife had been used as a model. Monsieur de l'Estorade is certainly no fool; in all social matters he has the highest sense of conventional propriety, and as for jealousy, I think if I gave him the slightest occasion he would show himself ridiculously jealous. But now, the sight of his "beautiful Renee," as he calls me, done into white marble in the form of a saint, had evidently cast him into a state of admiring ecstasy. He, with Nais, were taking an inventory to prove the fidelity of the likeness--yes, it was really my att.i.tude, really my eyes, really my mouth, really those two little dimples in my cheeks!

I felt it my duty to take up the role that Monsieur de l'Estorade laid aside, so I said, very gravely, to the presuming artist:--

"Do you not think, monsieur, that to appropriate without permission, or--not to mince my words--steal a person's likeness, may seem a very strange proceeding?"

"For that reason, madame," he replied, in a respectful tone, "I was fully determined to abide by your wishes in the matter. Although my statue is fated to be buried in the oratory of a distant convent, I should not have sent it to its destination without obtaining your permission to do so. I could have known your name whenever I wished; I already knew your address; and I intended, when the time came, to confess the liberty I had taken, and ask you to visit my studio. I should then have said what I say now: if the likeness displeases you I can, with a few strokes of my chisel, so change it as to make it unrecognizable."

My husband, who apparently thought the likeness not sufficiently close, turned, at this moment, to Monsieur Dorlange, and said, with a delighted air:--

"Do you not think, monsieur, that Madame de l'Estorade's nose is rather more delicate than you have made it?"

All this _unexpectedness_ so upset me that I felt unfitted to intervene on behalf of Monsieur Marie-Gaston, and I should, I believe, have pleaded his cause very ill if Monsieur Dorlange had not stopped me at the first words I said about it.

"I know, madame," he said, "all that you can possibly tell me about my unfaithful friend. I do not forgive, but I forget my wrong. Things having so come about that I have nearly lost my life for his sake, it would certainly be very illogical to keep a grudge against him. Still, as regards that mausoleum at Ville d'Avray, nothing would induce me to undertake it. I have already mentioned to Monsieur de l'Estorade one hindrance that is daily growing more imperative; but besides that, I think it a great pity that Marie-Gaston should thus ruminate on his grief; and I have written to tell him so. He ought to be more of a man, and find in study and in work the consolations we can always find there."

The object of our visit being thus disposed of, I saw no hope of getting to the bottom of the other mystery it had opened, so I rose to take leave, and as I did so Monsieur Dorlange said to me:--

"May I hope that you will not exact the injury I spoke of to my statue?"

"It is for my husband and not for me to reply to that question," I said; "however, we can talk of it later, for Monsieur de l'Estorade hopes that you will give us the honor of a visit."

Monsieur bowed in respectful acquiescence, and we came away,--I, in great ill-humor; I was angry with Nais, and also with my husband, and felt much inclined to make him a scene, which he would certainly not have understood.

Now what do you think of all this? Is the man a clever swindler, who invented that fable for some purpose, or is he really an artist, who took me in all simplicity of soul for the living realization of his idea? That is what I intend to find out in the course of a few days, for now I am committed to your programme, and to-morrow Monsieur and Madame de l'Estorade will have the honor of inviting Monsieur Dorlange to dinner.

VII. THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO MADAME OCTAVE DE CAMPS

Paris, March, 1839.

My dear friend,--Monsieur Dorlange dined with us yesterday. My intention was to invite him alone to a formal family dinner, so as to have him more completely under my eye, and put him to the question at my ease.

But Monsieur de l'Estorade, to whom I had not explained my charitable motives, showed me that such an invitation might wound the sensibilities of our guest; it might seem to him that the Comte de l'Estorade thought the sculptor Dorlange unfitted for the society of his friends.

"We can't," said my husband gaily, "treat him like the sons of our farmers who come here with the epaulet of a lieutenant on their shoulder, and whom we invite with closed doors because we can't send them to the servants' hall."

We therefore invited to meet him Monsieur Joseph Bridau, the painter, the Chevalier d'Espard, Monsieur and Madame de la Bastie (formerly, you remember, Mademoiselle Modeste Mignon) and the Marquis de Ronquerolles.

When my husband invited the latter, he asked him if he had any objection to meeting the adversary of the Duc de Rhetore.

"So far from objecting," replied Monsieur de Ronquerolles, "I am glad of the opportunity to meet a man of talent, who in the affair you speak of behaved admirably." And he added, after my husband had told him of our great obligation to Monsieur Dorlange, "Then he is a true hero, your sculptor! if he goes on this way, we can't hold a candle to him."

In his studio, with a bare throat leaving his head, which is rather too large for his body, free, and dressed in a sort of Oriental costume, Monsieur Dorlange looked to me a great deal better than he does in regular evening dress. Though I must say that when he grows animated in speaking his face lights up, a sort of a magnetic essence flows from his eyes which I had already noticed in our preceding encounters. Madame de la Bastie was as much struck as I was by this peculiarity.

I don't know if I told you that the ambition of Monsieur Dorlange is to be returned to the Chamber at the coming elections. This was the reason he gave for declining Monsieur Gaston's commission. What Monsieur de l'Estorade and I thought, at first, to be a mere excuse was an actual reason. At table when Monsieur Joseph Bridau asked him point-blank what belief was to be given to the report of his parliamentary intentions, Monsieur Dorlange formally announced them; from that moment, throughout the dinner, the talk was exclusively on politics.

When it comes to topics foreign to his studies, I expected to find our artist, if not a novice, at least very slightly informed. Not at all.

On men, on things, on the past as on the future of parties, he had very clear and really novel views, which were evidently not borrowed from the newspapers; and he put them forth in lively, easy, and elegant language; so that after his departure Monsieur de Ronquerolles and Monsieur de l'Estorade declared themselves positively surprised at the strong and powerful political att.i.tude he had taken. This admission was all the more remarkable because, as you know, the two gentlemen are zealous conservatives, whereas Monsieur Dorlange inclines in a marked degree to democratic principles.

This unexpected superiority in my problematical follower rea.s.sured me not a little; still, I was resolved to get to the bottom of the situation, and therefore, after dinner I drew him into one of those tete-a-tetes which the mistress of a house can always bring about.

After talking awhile about Monsieur Marie-Gaston, our mutual friend, the enthusiasms of my dear Louise and my efforts to moderate them, I asked him how soon he intended to send his Saint-Ursula to her destination.

"Everything is ready for her departure," he replied, "but I want your _exeat_, madame; will you kindly tell me if you desire me to change her expression?"

"One question in the first place," I replied: "Will your work suffer by such a change, supposing that I desire it?"

"Probably. If you cut the wings of a bird you hinder its flight."

"Another question: Is it I, or the _other person_ whom the statue best represents?"

"You, madame; that goes without saying, for you are the present, she the past."

"But, to desert the past for the present is a bad thing and goes by a bad name, monsieur; and yet you proclaim it with a very easy air."

"True," said Monsieur Dorlange, laughing, "but art is ferocious; wherever it sees material for its creations, it pounces upon it desperately."

"Art," I replied, "is a great word under which a mult.i.tude of things shelter themselves. The other day you told me that circ.u.mstances, too long to relate at that moment, had contributed to fix the image of which I was the reflection in your mind, where it has left a vivid memory; was not that enough to excite my curiosity?"

"It was true, madame, that time did not allow of my making an explanation of those circ.u.mstances; but, in any case, having the honor of speaking to you for the first time, it would have been strange, would it not, had I ventured to make you any confidences?"

"Well, but now?" I said, boldly.

"Now, unless I receive more express encouragement, I am still unable to suppose that anything in my past can interest you."

"Why not? Some acquaintances ripen fast. Your devotion to my Nais has advanced our friendship rapidly. Besides," I added, with affected levity, "I am pa.s.sionately fond of stories."

"But mine has no conclusion to it; it is an enigma even to myself."

"All the better; perhaps between us we might find the key to it."

Monsieur Dorlange appeared to take counsel with himself; then, after a short pause he said:--

"It is true that women are admirably fitted to seize the lighter shades of meaning in acts and sentiments which we men are unable to decipher.

But this confidence does not concern myself alone; I should have to request that it remain absolutely between ourselves, not even excepting Monsieur de l'Estorade from this restriction. A secret is never safe beyond the person who confides it, and the person who hears it."

I was much puzzled, as you can well suppose, about what might follow; still, continuing my explorations, I replied:--

"Monsieur de l'Estorade is so little in the habit of hearing everything from me, that he never even read a line of my correspondence with Madame Marie-Gaston."

Until then, Monsieur Dorlange had stood before the fireplace, at one corner of which I was seated; but he now took a chair beside me and said, by way of preamble:--

"I mentioned to you, madame, the family of Lanty--"