Fallen Angel [antikvár]

CHAPTER 1 A bright silvery moon was shining down on Paris that night in early February, dimming the new gaslights that were the dty's pride. Over the wide paviag stones of the Place de la Madeleine rumbled the carriage of Hilary de Bergerac The handsome young blond aristocrat and his companion, a lovely redhaired English girl, were returning from the Opéra Comique to her aunt's home in the Faubourg St, Germain. "But Veronica, you must love me," HUary was saying. "You simply must\ I shan't be able to face my friends if you don't!" Veronica Carstairs slanted her violet eyes at him. Her light, tinkling laugh was slightly mocking. "Poor Hilary! ITien you shall have to become a hermit. I am fond of you, but love? No, I love no one." "Ha!" he said. "I should have known. I find a girl not only beautiful but well-connected and rich enough to please my tyrant of a father, I fall madly, hopelessly in love with her, only to be told she is fond of me. Next, I suppose, you will say that we can always be friends." "Oh, I shouldn't care to be guilty of such a cliché. What would George Sand say if one of her disciples talked like a character in a novel by Fanny Bumey?" "I prefer your Miss Bumey to our 'Mister' George Sand," said Hilary. "Actually, Eveline and Cec/fta were quite acceptable novels and much to be preferred for young ladies than La Mare au Diable and La Petite Fadette. George Sand, bah! She should grow a moustache to go with her trousers." "Hilary, despite your aristocratic background, you have the taste of a bourgeois." Hilary disregarded the literary aspersion to return to personal matters. "So you will not even promise to be my friend forever. Then you must love someone else."