"Jonathan," he said to the old servant, as soon as he lay in bed, "give me half a drop of laudanum on a piece of sugar, and don't wake me to-morrow till twenty minutes to twelve."
"I want Pauline to love me!" he cried next morning, looking at the talisman the while in unspeakable anguish.
The skin did not move in the least; it seemed to have lost its power to shrink; doubtless it could not fulfil a wish fulfilled already.
"Ah!" exclaimed Raphael, feeling as if a mantle of lead had fallen away, which he had worn ever since the day when the talisman had been given to him; "so you are playing me false, you are not obeying me, the pact is broken!
I am free; I shall live.
Then was it all a wretched joke?"
But he did not dare to believe in his own thought as he uttered it.
He dressed himself as simply as had formerly been his wont, and set out on foot for his old lodging, trying to go back in fancy to the happy days when he abandoned himself without peril to vehement desires, the days when he had not yet condemned all human enjoyment.
As he walked he beheld Pauline—not the Pauline of the Hotel Saint-Quentin, but the Pauline of last evening. Here was the accomplished mistress he had so often dreamed of, the intelligent young girl with the loving nature and artistic temperament, who understood poets, who understood poetry, and lived in luxurious surroundings. Here, in short, was Foedora, gifted with a great soul; or Pauline become a countess, and twice a millionaire, as Foedora had been.
When he reached the worn threshold, and stood upon the broken step at the door, where in the old days he had had so many desperate thoughts, an old woman came out of the room within and spoke to him.
"You are M. Raphael de Valentin, are you not?"
"Yes, good mother," he replied.
"You know your old room then," she replied; "you are expected up there."
"Does Mme. Gaudin still own the house?" Raphael asked.
"Oh no, sir.
Mme. Gaudin is a baroness now.
She lives in a fine house of her own on the other side of the river.
Her husband has come back.
My goodness, he brought back thousands and thousands.
They say she could buy up all the Quartier Saint-Jacques if she liked.
She gave me her basement room for nothing, and the remainder of her lease.
Ah, she's a kind woman all the same; she is no more proud to-day than she was yesterday."
Raphael hurried up the staircase to his garret; as he reached the last few steps he heard the sounds of a piano.
Pauline was there, simply dressed in a cotton gown, but the way that it was made, like the gloves, hat, and shawl that she had thrown carelessly upon the bed, revealed a change of fortune.
"Ah, there you are!" cried Pauline, turning her head, and rising with unconcealed delight.
Raphael went to sit beside her, flushed, confused, and happy; he looked at her in silence.
"Why did you leave us then?" she asked, dropping her eyes as the flush deepened on his face.
"What became of you?"
"Ah, I have been very miserable, Pauline; I am very miserable still."
"Alas!" she said, filled with pitying tenderness.
"I guessed your fate yesterday when I saw you so well dressed, and apparently so wealthy; but in reality? Eh, M. Raphael, is it as it always used to be with you?"
Valentin could not restrain the tears that sprang to his eyes. "Pauline," he exclaimed,
"I——"
He went no further, love sparkled in his eyes, and his emotion overflowed his face.
"Oh, he loves me! he loves me!" cried Pauline.
Raphael felt himself unable to say one word; he bent his head.
The young girl took his hand at this; she pressed it as she said, half sobbing and half laughing:—
"Rich, rich, happy and rich!
Your Pauline is rich. But I? Oh, I ought to be very poor to-day.
I have said, times without number, that I would give all the wealth upon this earth for those words, 'He loves me!'
O my Raphael!
I have millions.
You like luxury, you will be glad; but you must love me and my heart besides, for there is so much love for you in my heart.
You don't know? My father has come back.
I am a wealthy heiress.
Both he and my mother leave me completely free to decide my own fate.
I am free—do you understand?"
Seized with a kind of frenzy, Raphael grasped Pauline's hands and kissed them eagerly and vehemently, with an almost convulsive caress.
Pauline drew her hands away, laid them on Raphael's shoulders, and drew him towards her. They understood one another—in that close embrace, in the unalloyed and sacred fervor of that one kiss without an afterthought—the first kiss by which two souls take possession of each other.
"Ah, I will not leave you any more," said Pauline, falling back in her chair. "I do not know how I come to be so bold!" she added, blushing.