Chapter 10

DRAMA

"What is it, my child?" said Claude Vignon, who had slipped silently
into the bedroom after Calyste, and now took him by the hand. "You
love; you think you are disdained; but it is not so. The field will be
free to you in a few days and you will reign--beloved by more than
one."

"Loved!" cried Calyste, springing up, and beckoning Claude into the
library, "Who loves me here?"

"Camille," replied Claude.

"Camille loves me? And you!--what of you?"

"I?" answered Claude, "I--" He stopped; sat down on a sofa and rested
his head with weary sadness on a cushion. "I am tired of life, but I
have not the courage to quit it," he went on, after a short silence.
"I wish I were mistaken in what I have just told you; but for the last
few days more than one vivid light has come into my mind. I did not
wander about the marshes for my pleasure; no, upon my soul I did not!
The bitterness of my words when I returned and found you with Camille
were the result of wounded feeling. I intend to have an explanation
with her soon. Two minds as clear-sighted as hers and mine cannot
deceive each other. Between two such professional duellists the combat
cannot last long. Therefore I may as well tell you now that I shall
leave Les Touches; yes, to-morrow perhaps, with Conti. After we are
gone strange things will happen here. I shall regret not witnessing
conflicts of passion of a kind so rare in France, and so dramatic. You
are very young to enter such dangerous lists; you interest me; were it
not for the profound disgust I feel for women, I would stay and help
you play this game. It is difficult; you may lose it; you have to do
with two extraordinary women, and you feel too much for one to use the
other judiciously. Beatrix is dogged by nature; Camille has grandeur.
Probably you will be wrecked between those reefs, drawn upon them by
the waves of passion. Beware!"

Calyste's stupefaction on hearing these words enabled Claude to say
them without interruption and leave the young Breton, who remained
like a traveller among the Alps to whom a guide has shown the depth of
some abyss by flinging a stone into it. To hear from the lips of
Claude himself that Camille loved him, at the very moment when he felt
that he loved Beatrix for life, was a weight too heavy for his untried
soul to bear. Goaded by an immense regret which now filled all the
past, overwhelmed with a sight of his position between Beatrix whom he
loved and Camille whom he had ceased to love, the poor boy sat
despairing and undecided, lost in thought. He sought in vain for the
reasons which had made Felicite reject his love and bring Claude