The marquise was impenetrable. Camille tried to make Calyste talk,
hoping that his artless mind would betray itself; but the youth
excused himself on the ground that his mother expected him, and he
left Les Touches at eleven o'clock,--not, however, without having
faced the fire of a piercing glance from Camille, to whom that excuse
was made for the first time.
After the agitations of a wakeful night filled with visions of
Beatrix, and after going a score of times through the chief street of
Guerande for the purpose of meeting the answer to his letter, which
did not come, Calyste finally received the following reply, which the
marquise's waiting-woman, entering the hotel du Guenic, presented to
him. He carried it to the garden, and there, in the grotto, he read as
follows:--
Madame de Rochefide to Calyste.
You are a noble child, but you are only a child. You are bound to
Camille, who adores you. You would not find in me either the
perfections that distinguish her or the happiness that she can
give you. Whatever you may think, she is young and I am old; her
heart is full of treasures, mine is empty; she has for you a
devotion you ill appreciate; she is unselfish; she lives only for
you and in you.
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