Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 06

								

then Maltravers did not pretend to be a wit.
Maltravers had been several weeks in the city of cities, and now he had
his apartments in the gloomy but interesting Faubourg St. Germain, all to
himself.  For Cleveland, having attended eight days at a sale, and having
moreover ransacked all the curiosity shops, and shipped off bronzes and
cabinets, and Genoese silks and objets de vertu, enough to have half
furnished Fonthill, had fulfilled his mission, and returned to his villa.
Before the old gentleman went, he flattered himself that change of air
and scene had already been serviceable to his friend; and that time would
work a complete cure upon that commonest of all maladies,--an unrequited
passion, or an ill-placed caprice.
Maltravers, indeed, in the habit of conquering, as well as of concealing
emotion, vigorously and earnestly strove to dethrone the image that had
usurped his heart.  Still vain of his self-command, and still worshipping
his favourite virtue of Fortitude and his delusive philosophy of the calm
Golden Mean, he would not weakly indulge the passion, while he so sternly
fled from its object.
But yet the image of Evelyn pursued,--it haunted him; it came on him
unawares, in solitude, in crowds.  That smile so cheering, yet so soft,
that ever had power to chase away the shadow from his soul; that youthful
and luxurious bloom of pure and eloquent thoughts, which was as the
blossom of genius before its fruit, bitter as well as sweet, is born;
that rare union of quick feeling and serene temper, which forms the very
ideal of what we dream of in the mistress, and exact from the wife,--all,
even more, far more, than the exquisite form and the delicate graces of
the less durable beauty, returned to him, after every struggle with
himself; and time only seemed to grave, in deeper if more latent folds of
his heart, the ineradicable impression.
Maltravers renewed his acquaintance with some persons not unfamiliar to
the reader.
Valerie de Ventadour--how many recollections of the fairer days of life
were connected with that name!  Precisely as she had never reached to his
love, but only excited his fancy (the fancy of twenty-two), had her image
always retained a pleasant and grateful hue; it was blended with no deep
sorrow, no stern regret, no dark remorse, no haunting shame.
They met again.  Madame de Ventadour was still beautiful, and still
admired,--perhaps more admired than ever; for to the great, fashion and
celebrity bring a second and yet more popular youth.  But Maltravers, if
rejoiced to see how gently Time had dealt with the fair Frenchwoman, was
yet more pleased to read in her fine features a more serene and contented
expression than they had formerly worn.  Valerie de Ventadour had
preceded her younger admirer through the "MYSTERIES of LIFE;" she had
learned the real objects of being; she distinguished between the Actual
and the Visionary, the Shadow and the Substance; she had acquired content