These alarming symptoms Marie perceived one evening at Lady Dudley's.
Raoul was sitting apart on a sofa in the boudoir, while the rest of
the company were conversing in the salon. The countess went to the
door, but he did not raise his head; he heard neither Marie's
breathing nor the rustle of her silk dress; he was gazing at a flower
in the carpet, with fixed eyes, stupid with grief; he felt he had
rather die than abdicate. All the world can't have the rock of Saint
Helena for a pedestal. Moreover, suicide was then the fashion in
Paris. Is it not, in fact, the last resource of all atheistical
societies? Raoul, as he sat there, had decided that the moment had
come to die. Despair is in proportion to our hopes; that of Raoul had
no other issue than the grave.
"What is the matter?" cried Marie, flying to him.
"Nothing," he answered.
There is one way of saying that word "nothing" between lovers which
signifies its exact contrary. Marie shrugged her shoulders.
"You are a child," she said. "Some misfortune has happened to you."
"No, not to me," he replied. "But you will know all soon enough,
Marie," he added, affectionately.
"What were you thinking of when I came in?" she asked, in a tone of
authority.
"Do you want to know the truth?" She nodded. "I was thinking of you; I
was saying to myself that most men in my place would have wanted to be
loved without reserve.
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