A garden such as Watteau loved to paint—bosky trees, little stretches of grassy lawn, white statues of nymphs and fauns peering from among the green leaves, a statue of a naiad pouring water from a marble urn, green with moss, into a marble basin, green with moss.
In front of all, the smooth river, dusked and dappled now and then by little breezes that slowly sway the tops of the tall poplar-trees. The little birds sing, and patches of sunlight and shadow flicker upon the grass.
Enter Oliver and Mademoiselle Céleste. She carries a pink parasol that makes her face glow like a rose leaf, and Oliver walks by her side.
That morning Oliver had paid his first visit to the château. His master had trained him well in the ways of the world during the twelvemonth he had lived with him in Paris; nevertheless, he came to the château quivering with trepidation. But now the trepidation had passed and gone, and it was all like the bewildering glamour of some strange dream—the presence of his love no longer dumbly reflected from the smooth, passionless mirror, but in warm living flesh and blood, breathing and articulate. She spoke; she smiled; it was divine. A little wind blew a gauze of hair across her soft cheek now and then as they walked together; her sleeve brushed against Oliver's arm, and Oliver's heart quivered and thrilled.
That night was to him but a succession of dreams, coming one after another like a continuous panorama, only each separate picture centred in one figure, and Oliver himself walked along beside her, and told her that he loved her. It was a deliciously restless night.
After Oliver had gone home, the marquis lingered for a moment or two in madame's apartment, standing with his back to the fireplace listening while she talked to him.
"ENTER OLIVER AND MADEMOISELLE CÉLESTE."
"I do not like him," said she; "he is ostentatious. Who ever heard of wearing diamond knee and shoe buckles in the country? The solitaire pin in his cravat was enormous."
"It was a magnificent diamond," said the marquis.
"He is an adventurer," replied the marquise.
The marquis felt in his waistcoat pocket, and brought out the two diamonds that Oliver had given him. He held them in the palm of his hand under the nose of the marquise. "Bah!" said he; "you talk like a fool, Matilde. Do adventurers, then, give away seventy-five thousand livres' worth of diamonds as though they were chestnuts? Did you ever hear of an adventurer who carried around a half a million livres' worth of diamonds in a little box? No; he may not be an aristocrat, but he is certainly an Aladdin."
So Oliver was made welcome at the château whenever he chose to come. By the time that a month had passed, he had grown into a certain intimacy. They all liked him; even madame had condoned his diamonds and liked him. Then one morning the marquis received an astounding letter from his protégé.
"Monseigneur," it said, "I recognize in you a true and kind friend, a man of the world upon whom I can depend." (Oliver's master in Paris had done wonders for him; he really wrote very well.) "I am, monseigneur, troubled and harassed. I am young and without experience. I now have with me here my whole fortune, which consists entirely of diamonds—the gleaning of years from my American uncle's mines in Brazil. I do not think that I overestimate, monseigneur, in saying that that fortune is worth—" (I will not repeat what the figures were, they were so tremendous, so unbelievable, that the marquis laid the letter down, and gazed around him bewildered. "If this is true," said he, drawing a deep breath, "my young friend is the richest man in France." Thereupon he picked up the letter, and read the figures over again, and then over again. "He must have made a mistake of a cipher," said the marquis. But no; the amount was not only given in numbers, but written out in full—there could be no mistake. The marquis resumed the reading of the epistle.) "I am," continued the letter, "tormented with fears at having this vast amount in my house"—"I should think so," muttered the marquis to himself—"which, though at present a profound secret, may at any time be discovered. What dangers I would then be in, I leave you to judge for yourself. I have, monseigneur, no friends, no relatives, of sufficient age and experience to advise me in my difficulties. Accordingly I turn to you, who have shown me so much kindness, and beseech you that you will so far continue it—I may say increase it—as to take charge of this treasure, and advise me as to how I may best dispose of it."
Such was the matter of Oliver's letter. The Marquis de Flourens sat for a long while meditating very deeply and seriously upon what he had read. That same morning Oliver received a note from him, "Bring your little fortune, my child," it said. "What a father may do for a son, I will do for you."