Villette

gelebt und geliebet!«
     
    »Lived and loved!« said she, »is that the summit of earthly happiness, the end of life – to love? I don't think it is. It may be the extreme of mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of feeling. If Schiller had said to
be
loved – he might have come nearer the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?«
    »I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to you? What do you know about it?«
    She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.
    »Now, Lucy,« she said, »I won't take that from you. It may be well for papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view me; but
you
know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am verging on my nineteenth year.«
    »No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings by discussion and conversation: we will not talk about love.«
    »Indeed, indeed!« said she – all in hurry and heat – »you may think to check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I
have
talked about it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn't approve.«
    And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed. Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance – combined with some transient perverseness and petulance – I said at last, –
    »Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who that has near access to you would dare to do it?«
    »Lucy,« replied she more softly, »it is a person who makes me miserable sometimes; and I wish she would keep away – I don't want her.«
    »But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much.«
    »It is – it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit Mrs. Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she begins to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all she has to say about love.«
    »Oh, I have heard it,« said I, quite coolly; »and on the whole, perhaps, it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be regretted, it is all right. Yet surely, Ginevra's mind cannot influence yours. You can look over both her head and her heart.«
    »She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the feelings and people dearest to me.«
    »What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be counteraction of the damage done.«
    »The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She does not spare Mrs. Bretton – she does not spare ... Graham.«
    »No, I dare say: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and her ...
love?
She does mix them, I suppose?«
    »Lucy, she is insolent; and I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton. We both know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever mean or slavish? Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her feet, pursuing her like her shadow. She – repulsing him with insult, and he imploring her with infatuation. Lucy, is it true? Is any of it true?«
    »It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him out as still her suitor?«
    »She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent.«
    »It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner towards Graham which your father noticed.«
    »They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As Ginevra speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed truth: I believe she exaggerates – perhaps invents – but I want to know how far.«
    »Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity of displaying the power she boasts.«
    »I could do that to-morrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner, all savants. Graham who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant, too – skilled, they say, in more than one branch of science – is among the number. Now I should be miserable to sit at table unsupported, amidst such a party. I could not talk to Messieurs A–– and Z––, the Parisian academicians: all my new credit for manner would be put in peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; Ginevra, at a word, will join you.«
    »Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have the chance of justifying her character for veracity.«
     

 
Chapter XXVII
The Hotel Crécy
    The morrow turned out a more lively and busy