Chapter 11

FEMALE DIPLOMACY

Calyste ran with the lightness of a young fawn to Les Touches and
reached the portico just as Camille and Beatrix were leaving the grand
salon after their dinner. He had the sense to offer his arm to
Felicite.

"So you have abandoned your viscountess and her daughter for us," she
said, pressing his arm; "we are able now to understand the full merit
of that sacrifice."

"Are these Kergarouets related to the Portendueres, and to old Admiral
de Kergarouet, whose widow married Charles de Vandenesse?" asked
Madame de Rochefide.

"The viscountess is the admiral's great-niece," replied Camille.

"Well, she's a charming girl," said Beatrix, placing herself
gracefully in a Gothic chair. "She will just do for you, Monsieur du
Guenic."

"The marriage will never take place," said Camille hastily.

Mortified by the cold, calm air with which the marquise seemed to
consider the Breton girl as the only creature fit to mate him, Calyste
remained speechless and even mindless.

"Why so, Camille?" asked Madame de Rochefide.

"Really, my dear," said Camille, seeing Calyste's despair, "you are
not generous; did I advise Conti to marry?"

Beatrix looked at her friend with a surprise that was mingled with
indefinable suspicions.

Calyste, unable to understand Camille's motive, but feeling that she
came to his assistance and seeing in her cheeks that faint spot of
color which he knew to mean the presence of some violent emotion, went
up to her rather awkwardly and took her hand. But she left him and
seated herself carelessly at the piano, like a woman so sure of her
friend and lover that she can afford to leave him with another woman.
She played variations, improvising them as she played, on certain
themes chosen, unconsciously to herself, by the impulse of her mind;
they were melancholy in the extreme.

Beatrix seemed to listen to the music, but she was really observing
Calyste, who, much too young and artless for the part which Camille
was intending him to play, remained in rapt adoration before his real
idol.

After about an hour, during which time Camille continued to play,
Beatrix rose and retired to her apartments. Camille at once took
Calyste into her chamber and closed the door, fearing to be overheard;
for women have an amazing instinct of distrust.

"My child," she said, "if you want to succeed with Beatrix, you must
seem to love me still, or you will fail. You are a child; you know
nothing of women; all you know is how to love. Now loving and making
one's self beloved are two very different things. If you go your