The Idol of Paris by Bernhardt, Sarah, 1845-1923

The child had fainted, and her head hung limply back. Her golden hair made an aureola of light around the colourless face with its dead white lips.

Maurice raised the child in his arms, and Madame Darbois led him quickly to Esperance's little room where he laid the light form on its little bed. Francois Darbois moistened her temples quickly with Eau de Cologne. Madame Darbois supported Esperance's head, holding a little ether to her nose. As Maurice looked about the little room, as fresh, as white, as the two pots of marguerites on the mantel-shelf, an indefinable sentiment swelled up within him. Was it a kind of adoration for so much purity? Philippe Renaud had remained in the dining-room where he succeeded in keeping Adhemar, in spite of his efforts to follow the Darbois.

Esperance opened her eyes and seeing beside her only her father and mother, those two beings whom she loved so deeply, so tenderly, she reached out her arms and drew close to her their beloved heads. Maurice had slipped out very quietly. "Papa dearie, Mama beloved, forgive me, it is not my fault," she sobbed.

"Don't cry, my child, now, not a tear," cried Darbois, bending over his little girl. "It is settled, you shall be...." and the word was lost in her little ear.

She went suddenly pink, and raising herself towards him, whispered her reply, "Oh! I thank you! How I love you both! Thank you! Thank you!"

CHAPTER II

Esperance, left alone with her mother, drank the tea this tender parent brought to her, and the look of health began to come back to her face.

"Then to-morrow, mother dearest, we must go and be registered for the examinations that are soon to be held at the Conservatoire."

"You want to go to-morrow?"

"Yes, to-day we must stay with papa, mustn't we? He is so kind!"

The two--mother and daughter--were silent a moment, occupied with the same tender thoughts.

"And now we will persuade him to go out with us, shan't we, mother dear?"

"That will be the very best thing for both of you," agreed Madame Darbois, and she went to make her preparations.

Left alone, Esperance cast aside her blue dress and surveyed herself in the long mirror. Her eyes were asking the questions that perplexed her whole being. She raised herself lightly on her little feet. "Oh! yes, surely I am going to be tall. I am only fifteen, and I am quite tall for my age. Oh! yes, I shall be tall." She came very close to the mirror and examined herself closely, hypnotizing herself little by little. She beheld herself under a million different aspects. Her whole life seemed passing before her, shadowy figures came and went--one of them, the most persistent, seemed to keep stretching towards her long appealing arms. She shivered, recoiled abruptly, and passing her hand across her forehead, dispelled the dizzy visions that were gathering there.

When her mother returned she found her quietly reading Victor Hugo, studying "_Dona Sol_" in _Hernani_. She had not heard the opening of the door, and she started at finding her mother close beside her.

"You see, I am not going to lose any time," she said, closing the book. "Ah! mama, how happy I am, how happy!"