“How lovely you are, my Marsa!  And how I love you!”

The Prince spoke these words in a tone, and with a look, which touched the deepest depths of Marsa’s heart.

Then they exchanged those words, full of emotion, which, in their eternal triteness, are like music in the ears of those who love.  Every one had withdrawn to the garden, to leave them alone in this last, furtive, happy minute, which is never found again, and which, on the threshold of the unknown, possesses a joy, sad as a last farewell, yet full of hope as the rising of the sun.

He told her how ardently he loved her, and how grateful he was to her for having consented, in her youth and beauty, to become the wife of a quasi-exile, who still kept, despite his efforts, something of the melancholy of the past.

And she, with an outburst of gratitude, devotion, and love, in which all the passion of her nature and her race vibrated, said, in a voice which trembled with unshed tears: 

“Do not say that I give you my life.  It is you who make of a girl of the steppes a proud and honored wife, who asks herself why all this happiness has come to her.”  Then, nestling close to Andras, and resting her dark head upon his shoulder, she continued:  “We have a proverb, you remember, which says, Life is a tempest.  I have repeated it very often with bitter sadness.  But now, that wicked proverb is effaced by the refrain of our old song, Life is a chalet of pearls.”

And the Tzigana, lost in the dream which was now a tangible reality, saying nothing, but gazing with her beautiful eyes, now moist, into the face of Andras, remained encircled in his arms, while he smiled and whispered, again and again, “I love you!”

All the rest of the world had ceased to exist for these two beings, absorbed in each other.

CHAPTER XX

THE BRIDAL DAY

The little Baroness ran into the room, laughing, and telling them how late it was; and Andras and Marsa, awakened to reality, followed her to the hall, where Varhely, Vogotzine, Angelo Valla, Paul Jacquemin and other guests were assembled as a sort of guard of honor to the bride and groom.

Andras and the Baroness, with Varhely, immediately entered the Prince’s carriage; Vogotzine taking his place in the coupe with Marsa.  Then there was a gay crackling of the gravel, a flash of wheels in the sunlight, a rapid, joyous departure.  Clustered beneath the trees in the ordinarily quiet avenues of Maisons, the crowd watched the cortege; and old Vogotzine good-humoredly displayed his epaulettes and crosses for the admiration of the people who love uniforms.

As she descended from the carriage, Marsa cast a superstitious glance at the facade of the church, a humble facade, with a Gothic porch and cheap stained-glass windows, some of which were broken; and above a plaster tower covered with ivy and surmounted with a roughly carved cross.  She entered the church almost trembling, thinking again how strange was this fate which united, before a village altar, a Tzigana and a Magyar.  She walked up the aisle, seeing nothing, but hearing about her murmurs of admiration, and knelt down beside Andras, upon a velvet cushion, near which burned a tall candle, in a white candlestick.