“Nonsense!” said he. “Why should we marry?”
The gipsy turned pale, and let her head sink sadly on her breast.
“My pretty love,” tenderly added Phoebus, “what are all these foolish ideas? Marriage is nothing! Is any one less loving for not having spouted a little Latin in some priest’s shop?”
So saying in his sweetest voice, he approached extremely near the gipsy girl; his caressing hands had resumed their place around the lithe, slender waist, and his eye kindled more and more, and everything showed that Master Phoebus was about to enjoy one of those moments in which Jupiter himself commits so many follies that the good Homer is obliged to call in a cloud to help him.
But Dom Claude saw all. The door was made of decayed pun cheon staves, which left ample room between them for the passage of his hawk-like glance. The brown-skinned, broad-shouldered priest, hitherto condemned to the austere rule of the convent, shuddered and burned at this scene of love, darkness, and passion.
The young and lovely girl, her garments in disorder abandoning herself to this ardent young man, made his veins run molten lead. An extraordinary agitation shook him; his eye sought, with lustful desire, to penetrate beneath all these unfastened pins. Any one who had at this moment seen the face of the unhappy man glued to the worm-eaten bars, might have thought he saw a tiger glaring from his cage at some jackal devouring a gazelle. His pupils glowed like a candle through the cracks of the door.
Suddenly, with a rapid motion, Phoebus removed the gipsy’s neckerchief. The poor child, who still sat pale and dreamy, sprang up with a start; she retreated hastily from the enterprising officer, and, glancing at her bare throat and shoulders, red, confused, and dumb with shame, she crossed her lovely arms over her bosom to cover it. But for the flame which mantled her cheeks, any one seeing her thus silent and motionless, might have thought her a statue of Modesty. Her eyes were downcast.
Meantime the captain’s action had exposed the mysterious amulet which she wore about her neck.
“What’s this?” said he, seizing this pretext to draw nearer to the beautiful creature whom he had alarmed.
“Do not touch it!” replied she, quickly, “it is my protector. It will help me to find my family, if I am still worthy of it. Oh, leave me, Mr. Captain! My mother! my poor mother! Mother, where are you? Help me now! For Heaven’s sake, Mr. Phoebus, give me back my neckerchief!”
Phoebus drew back, and said in a cold tone,— “Oh, young lady! I see very plainly that you do not love me!”
“I do not love him!” exclaimed the unhappy creature, and at the same time she hung upon the captain, whom she drew to a seat by her side. “I not love you, my Phoebus? How can you say so, you wicked man, to break my heart? Oh, come! take me, take everything! Do with me what you will; I am yours. What do I care for the amulet! What is my mother to me now! You are my mother, for I love you! Phoebus, my adored Phoebus, do you see me? It is I, look at me; it is that little girl whom you cannot repulse, who comes,—who comes herself in search of you. My soul, my life, my person, are yours; I am all yours, my captain. No, then, we will not marry; it would trouble you; and what am I? A miserable child of the gutter; while you, my Phoebus, are a gentleman. A fine thing, truly,—a dancing-girl to marry an officer! I was mad. No, Phoebus, no; I will be your mistress, your amusement, your pleasure, when you will; always yours. I am only made for that,—to be soiled, despised, dishonored; but what matter? I shall be loved. I shall be the proudest and happiest of women. And when I grow old or ugly, Phoebus, when I am no longer fit to love you, my lord, you will still suffer me to serve you. Others may embroider your scarves; but I, your servant, will take care of them. You will let me polish your spurs, brush your coat, dust your riding-boots. You will have this much pity for me, my Phoebus, will you not? Meantime, take me! There, Phoebus, all this belongs to you, only love me. We gipsy girls need nothing else,—nothing but air and love.”
As she said this, she flung her arms around the officer’s neck; she gazed up into his face imploringly, and with a lovely smile through her tears. Her delicate throat rubbed against his cloth doublet with its rough embroideries. She threw herself across his lap, her beautiful body half revealed. The enraptured captain pressed his burning lips to those beautiful brown shoulders. The young girl, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, her head thrown back, shuddered and trembled at his kiss.
All at once above the head of Ph?bus she saw another head,—a livid, green, convulsed face, with the look of a soul in torment; beside this face there was a hand which held a dagger. It was the face and the hand of the priest; he had broken open the door, and he was there. Phoebus could not see him. The girl was motionless, frozen, mute, at the frightful apparition, like a dove which chances to raise its head at the instant when the sea-eagle glares into its nest with fiery eyes.