Chapter XLVI: Part I: Awakening (10)

But she had scarcely gone out before she regretted it, for she could not help hearing, not only their voices, but their very words. She was about to return when she was stopped, and rooted as it were to the ground, by a word which her ear caught, and which gave her a thrill. That word was _Cordelia_; and almost immediately after she heard her own name--her name, not that of Gabrielle, the only one by which she was known, but the name of her childhood, the name unknown to every one at Florence except him who now uttered it--and in such a tone!

“Fleurange!” said Count George. “Yes, mother, this name which just escaped me in speaking of her; this name as strange as her beauty, and which, like the charm she is endowed with, belongs to no one else in the world, was the one her father called her by the first time I ever saw her--a thousand times more charming than the Cordelia of which she was the original--”

Fleurange heard nothing more.--For some moments she felt ready to faint, and it was only a resolute effort of her will that kept her from falling to the ground, overcome by surprise and emotion. Was it really the count she heard speaking? and could it be his mother to whom he was talking? What madness led him to brave the princess by using such language--her whom the slightest contradiction often threw into a violent state of impatience and anger--her who could not endure the least opposition from any one? What would she say? What reply was Fleurange about to hear?

She no longer thought of stirring. She felt incapable of deciding whether it were well or ill to remain; she had but one wish--to hear the princess’ reply, and to act in consequence. Perhaps, after hearing it, she would leave the place where she stood, never to appear before her again; who could tell? Already a confused idea entered her mind of leaving the palace and returning through the streets, alone and on foot--night though it was--to the Steinbergs.

After a long silence the princess spoke, but her trembling and subdued voice, to Fleurange’s great surprise, betrayed no signs of anger. The effect was only the more profound on her who now stood quivering with silent expectation.

“Then, George, you wish to cause me the greatest mortification it is possible for a son to cause his mother--you wish to violate the promise on which I relied with so much faith and confidence?”

“Mother, I have already told you I never made any promise.”

“Enough, George. I like your frankness. Do not spoil it now by prevarication. If you made her no promise, you made me one which you have not kept--me, your mother. This is sufficient, I think, to merit my reproaches.”

“Mother--!” And George rose with an impatient air, and turned as if to go out.

The princess rose too. She seemed completely cured. It often happened that some extraordinary excitement effaced in a moment the last traces of a long and severe attack.

She put her arm around her son’s neck and drew him towards her. “George,” said she, when he returned to the place he had just left, “I ought not to trust any more in your promises, and yet there is one I beg you to make.”

“What is it, mother?”

“You will not yield to this folly without taking time for reflection?”

“I can promise that.”

“Moreover--listen to what I am going to ask--Swear you will never yield to it till you have obtained my consent.”

George hesitated. “That would be a very serious promise,” said he at length in a caressing tone, “if I did not know that in the end you never refuse anything to your spoiled child.”

“Come, come, George,” resumed his mother in an eager tone of distress, “do not make me repent of my indulgence. Give me your promise!”

“Well, mother, it should be acknowledged I ought to hesitate to give it--without ever having asked her, without even knowing how, after all, I should be received.”

The princess shrugged her shoulders.

He continued: “I am persuaded she would dispense with your consent less readily than I, and consequently my submission is under the guard of a will stronger than mine.”

The princess at first looked astonished; then, after a moment’s reflection, she said: “Perhaps you are right. No matter, give me your hand on this promise.”

George bent down, kissed his mother’s hand, and pressed it in his. “There it is,” said he, “and my promise--on my word of honor.”

“That is right, my child, now leave me. It is time for Gabrielle to return, and it would be better for her not to find you here.”

George rose, and, embracing his mother once more, left the room.

As soon as she was alone, the princess threw herself on her _chaise longue_, put both hands to her face, and burst into sobs.