第72章

Presently official announcement of the coming event was putforth.In another week’s time M.Fran?ois Pelet, directeur, and Mdlle Zora?de Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in the bands of matrimony.Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact to me; terminating his communication by an obliging expression of his desire that I should continue, as heretofore, his ablest assistant and most trusted friend; and a proposition to raise my salary by an additional two hundred francs per annum.I thanked him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and, when he had left me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out on a long walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to cool my blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas into some order.In fact, I had just received what was virtually my dismissal.I could not conceal, I did not desire to conceal from myself the conviction that, being now certain that Mdlle Reuter was destined to become Madame Pelet it would not do for me to remain a dependent dweller in the house which was soon to be hers.Her present demeanour towards me was deficient neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former feeling was unchanged.Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but Opportunity would be too strong for either of these—Temptation would shiver their restraints.

I was no pope—I could not boast infallibility: in short, if Istayed, the probability was that, in three months’ time, a practical modern French novel would be in full process of concoction under the roof of the unsuspecting Pelet.Now, modern French novels are not to my taste, either practically or theoretically.Limited as had yet been my experience of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating, near at hand, an example of the results produced by a course of interesting and romantic domestictreachery.No golden halo of fiction was about this example, I saw it bare and real, and it was very loathsome.I saw a mind degraded by the practice of mean subterfuge, by the habit of perfidious deception, and a body depraved by the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul.I had suffered much from the forced and prolonged view of this spectacle; those sufferings I did not now regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote to temptation.They had inscribed on my reason the conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching on another’s rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure—its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave for ever.

From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet’s,and that instantly; “but,” said Prudence, “you know not where to go, nor how to live;” and then the dream of true love came over me: Frances Henri seemed to stand at my side; her slender waist to invite my arm; her hand to court my hand; I felt it was made to nestle in mine; I could not relinquish my right to it, nor could I withdraw my eyes for ever from hers, where I saw so much happiness, such a correspondence of heart with heart; over whose expression I had such influence; where I could kindle bliss, infuse awe, stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and sometimes waken pleasurable dread.My hopes to will and possess, my resolutions to merit and rise, rose in array against me; and here I was about to plunge into the gulf of absolute destitution; “and all this,” suggested an inward voice, “because you fear an evil which may never happen!” “It will happen; you know it will,” answered that stubborn monitor, Conscience.“Do what you feel is right; obey me, and even in the sloughs of want I will plant for you firmfooting.” And then, as I walked fast along the road, there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea of some Great Being, unseen, but all present, who in His beneficence desired only my welfare, and now watched the struggle of good sad evil in my heart, and waited to see whether I should obey His voice, heard in the whispers of my conscience, or lend an ear to the sophisms by which His enemy and mine—the Spirit of Evil—sought to lead me astray.Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers; but whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists, would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the man-hating, God-defying demon.Sharp and short I turned round; fast I retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M.Pelet’s: I sought him in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner proved that I was resolved; he, perhaps, at heart approved my decision.After twenty minutes’ conversation, I re-entered my own room, self-deprived of the means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present home, with the short notice of a week in which to provide another.