Chapter VII: Part 7

She took up the other volume of Lamartine. Between the pages she had put an old letter of her father's to mark the place, and idly she unfolded this and read it again. The Rector spoke of many things; among others of Tristram's tour in Italy with his friend; they were reported to be enjoying themselves and Mr. Dormer's health was improving slowly. A passage she had forgotten struck her again.

"By the way, I have been having a correspondence with the Duke of Devonshire, who is a very keen numismatist, about some coins of mine; in the course of it he mentioned that he supposed you and Lady Granville (who is, as you know, his sister) had made acquaintance with each other. Thinking this over, I came to the conclusion that, from what you tell me of the political views of your new relations, it is improbable that you have been presented at the Embassy, but I cannot see any reason why you should not call upon her privately if she has no objection, since you are, after all, English by birth. I met her many years ago at Devonshire House with Tom Grenville; I think she would remember me. The Duke said he was going to write to Lady Granville about you; I do not know if he has done so; perhaps you have heard from her."

Horatia had not. The letter passed on to the projected Reform Bill which, Mr. Grenville wrote, was occupying everybody to the exclusion of anything else, and he heard that after dinner even ladies fell to at Potwallopers, Outvoters and Rotten Boroughs! "Now it has once been broached," went on the writer, "the rumpus if it is not carried will be appalling, in fact I think immediate combustion will be the result. It seems to me impossible now that the people could ever sit down quietly without Reform, or that they should be content with less than they have been promised; but the longer it is delayed the more exasperated they will get. Your cousin Chandos is much exercised about it."

Horatia looked at the date; it was the 9th of March. As she knew, since those words were written, the first reading of the Bill had been carried by a majority of one. But how little these great events seemed to touch her here.

The letter concluded, "I hope, my darling, that you are still very happy. If you are, so is your old Papa."

The letter fell on to _Les Harmonies_. Was she "still very happy?" .... How could she ask herself the question! Of course she was, blissfully happy--provided Armand were with her. But, of course, as she often told herself--and thought how sensible she was for being able to do so--he could not always be with her. Quite apart from the Dowager's odious recommendations she was determined not to be a drag upon him. The time had come when she must try to fill in her own life. That had been one motive for the unpacking of her books. She attended, of her own volition, one or two salons--that of the Marquise de Montglas, who always received lying in a chaise longue, draped with shawls, for she was a permanent invalid, though she held firmly the threads of conversation in the circle which spread fanwise round her couch--and that of her sister, Madame de Juvelcourt. The latter was deformed, a fact of which Horatia had been warned; but she was hardly prepared to find, as she did, a really hideous little dwarf, black and vivacious, literally perched on cushions, dressed in the latest fashion, making no attempt to hide her disadvantages, and not, indeed, seeming to mind them in the least. She had received the English wife very kindly, and as she was one of the Duchesse's rare visitors, Horatia felt more at home at her receptions than at any others. She even managed to enjoy herself there, and excited perhaps by Madame de Juvelcourt's own gaiety and wit, to return full of spirits, but when she got in her first inquiry was always for Armand. She was restless, feverishly restless, despite her resolve, when she was not with him. And he had naturally his own avocations, the usual diversions of a young man of fashion. She did not expect to share these, she did not even question him about them, but as the weeks went on, she could not but be aware that they seemed to claim him much more than they had done. He was always charming to her, and yet--and yet, she was conscious of something slipping. What was it, this tiny foreboding at her heart, an asp in Eden? She could not tell. Was it possible that there could be such a thing as over-sweetness, and had he begun to feel it, was she herself beginning to feel it? ...

Horatia came back to her present surroundings. Of course she did not really think these things--they were treachery to her great love. But one thought she did not drive away, a thought that was daily becoming more pursuing, the realisation of how much she was in bondage in her own house--if indeed it could be called her own. Marriage had not given her liberty; she had been far freer in Berkshire--free to come and go, to walk or ride--free to do, within reasonable limits, exactly as seemed good to her. Here she was more or less in the position of a child in the nursery. And when, as now, reflection on this topic ended by making her angry, she would try to stifle her impatience with some occupation, or to forget in Armand's society the price she was paying for it. With an exclamation she arose from her chair, and went to the window to see if it were still raining.

Nothing was doing in the courtyard--nothing was ever doing there. The little trees stood orderly in their tubs. A childish desire seized Horatia to throw something down ... Someone went out; it was Monsignor de la Roche-Guyon, summoned, probably to the Duchesse, who had an attack of indigestion and devotion. She wished he had been to see her. She liked him, and he interested her; she thought that he was probably of that particular type of French piety represented by Fenelon. But she knew very little about him, and after all he had made no attempt to convert her.

Certainly the rain was stopping, for the major-domo was now observed by the watcher to go forth, armed with an enormous bunchy umbrella, which, however he did not unfurl. Even he could go out, if not when he liked, at least without being accompanied against his will! She would rather stay in than go driving with the Marquise.

But then the sun suddenly began to shine, and Horatia could withstand no longer. She rang for her maid, ordered the carriage, changed her dress, and drove round to Madame de Beaulieu's house in the Rue de l'Universite"--a five minutes' drive.

And there unexpected tidings greeted her ravished ears. "Madame la Marquise is indisposed; she prays Madame la Comtesse to excuse her; she cannot go out to-day."

"And I am expected to go home again like a good child," thought Madame la Comtesse. "Never! Very well," she said to the footman, "tell Jean to drive me to Herbault's."

The dome of the Invalides glittered again in the sun, but as she crossed the river the giant statues on the Pont de la Concorde looked threateningly at her. She drove across the great expanse of the Place with the feeling of a child let out of school. The Rue Neuve St. Augustin came all too soon. She had no intention of going into Herbault's, and had only mentioned the famous shop because it would necessitate crossing the Seine. When the carriage was drawing up she leant forward and said that she had changed her mind, and would go to Houbigant's in the Rue St. Honore instead.

At Houbigant's she went in and bought some essence de mousseline, imagining that the other ladies making purchases looked at her curiously. As the assistant was tying up the bottle of scent she racked her brains to think what she could do next. Though her drives in the Bois de Boulogne had not enchanted her, she would have gone thither, since it would have been quiet, had she not known that Jean would immediately say that it was too far for the horses--an opinion which he shared or affected to share with other ancient coachmen of the Faubourg.

Suddenly her father's old letter flashed into her mind. Was not the English Embassy quite near, practically in the same street? and had not the Duke of Devonshire said that he would write? This was certainly her chance; she might never have such another. She could but be refused entrance if the Ambassadress did did not wish to see her. In a few moments she found herself in front of the house which had been Princess Borghese's.

The man admitted her and took her card, and returning said that Madame l'Ambassadrice was in the serre and would receive her. He proceeded to conduct her thither, and passing through a white and gold drawing-room she came to a long gallery of a conservatory, filled with spring flowers, where, on a divan in a little grove of orange-trees and lilacs and double red camellias, a lady of about forty, wrapped in a shawl, was taking farewell of a youth of French appearance, who was, however, talking very good English to her. The young Frenchman passed Horatia, tall, very young, good-looking. She was announced, and found herself being warmly greeted.

"And this is Stephen Grenville's daughter! My brother has just written to me about you. My dear, I would like to kiss you, but I have a horrible cold. Come and sit on the divan by me if you are not afraid of catching it. I have gargled and blistered till I am sure there can be no infection left!"

So Horatia sat down by the side of this daughter of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, who had not indeed inherited her mother's looks, but who had to the full the Cavendish charm of voice and manner, and, as she soon discovered, inexhaustible supplies both of humour and of wit. Lady Granville assumed, rather to her visitor's dismay, that her new relatives had "allowed" her to come, whereat Horatia, feeling something like a truant schoolgirl, had to confess that such was not the case. The Ambassadress looked grave, and Horatia was still more uncomfortable when it transpired that Lady Granville had, for her sake, relaxed her rule about formal presentations to herself. However, nobody could have been more kind or amusing. Horatia being English born, Lady Granville was able to permit herself some remarks on French society not untinged with malice, asking her visitor if she had yet become acquainted with "the type of woman made by Herbault, Victorine and Alexandre, the woman who looks to see if you have six curls or five on the side of your head," and whether it had yet been patronisingly said of her that no one would take her for an Englishwoman--"just as I sometimes tell Charles de Montalembert--that young man who was leaving as you came in--that he will some day be taken for an Englishman. But then he is half English, or rather Scotch. Yet no true Englishman would ever permit himself to be so enthusiastic about the Church."

"The Church!" exclaimed Horatia. "That young man! Oh, Lady Granville, how ... how unusual! Is he going to be a priest?"

"Oh no, my dear. He will be a peer of France when his father dies. He is an angel, rather too good for this earth of ours, but enthusiastic to the last degree! You have heard, I dare say, of Lamennais, the great preacher? Well, he and some friends started last autumn a most violent clerical paper, called _L'Avenir_, to which M. de Montalembert is one of the chief contributors. They want an alliance between Catholics and the people, they have alienated the Legitimists, hitherto the main supporters of the Church, by saying they sacrificed their God to their King, and now they are pressing the Bishops and clergy to give up all their endowments and palaces, without thinking how the poor things are to live. And the latest is that Charles and his great friend, a young abbe named Lacordaire, are talking of opening a 'free school' next month, and teaching in it themselves."

"And all this excitement is about the Church?" said Horatia musingly. "How strange, because in England too--at least at Oxford..."

"My dear, _surely_ there are no Charles de Montalemberts at Oxford--of all places! Besides, why should there be?"

Horatia could not say, but the question had so vividly called up another Charles--and his friend--that for a moment she hardly heard Lady Granville discussing the prospects of the Reform Bill.

When she took her leave, pressed by the Ambassadress to come soon on one of her Mondays--her Fridays were so crowded--she drove home in the highest spirits, feeling that she had really made a friend, and a most delightful friend.

*CHAPTER VII*

*(1)*

Horatia drove with the Marquise next afternoon. The Champs Elysees were very gay, and her spirits always went up when the sun shone. There was the indefinable romance of spring, the eternal romance of Paris--and Armand was coming back to-night. She was inclined to wonder at her restlessness of yesterday.

"Dear me," observed Madame de Beaulieu suddenly, "I smell essence de mousseline. When have you been to Houbigant's?" And without waiting for an answer she went on, "You are improving, ma chere. As a rule you English have organs for which no odour is too strong, and no colour is too striking. Lavender is the basis of all your perfumes, and the rainbow of all your colours."

As she spoke a very pretty woman, elaborately dressed in violet drap d'Algers and swansdown, and extravagantly painted, passed them for the third or fourth time in her carriage. She was alone, and was driving very slowly; many glances, of which she seemed pleasurably conscious, were cast at her from other carriages and by the male loungers under the trees. Chiefly to avoid the subject of Houbigant's, Horatia asked who she was.

The Marquise put up her lorgnettes. "That?" she said carelessly--"oh, Mademoiselle Blanchette Delmar of the Opera of course. Yes, she is pretty, isn't she? Armand thought so once, too, but they apparently got tired of each other very soon. I forget who is the favoured swain at present."

A curious sick coldness came over Horatia; yet the red mounted to her cheeks. The Marquise observed it.

"Ma chere," she said with a laugh, "surely you have not been placing your husband on a pinnacle apart from other men! Armand as an anchorite! Mon Dieu!"

"No, of course not," said Horatia, battling for composure, "but..."

"But!" repeated Madame de Beaulieu, "But what? The young person is very well, in her way. And it is quite a year ago. Then you are shocked at me for knowing about it? Well, I grant you that we are not supposed to know these things, for it is not good taste for a gentleman to parade his love-affairs. But pardon, for perhaps in England (though I had not guessed it such an Eden of purity) these things do not exist, and I have soiled your innocence unnecessarily. Forgive me!"

All the distaste of Horatia's soul for the Marquise blossomed at this moment into a sudden flower of hatred. She wanted to stop the carriage and get out. What need to have told her! Her brain went on working furiously as they continued to drive up and down and the Marquise continued to talk. Horatia had heard a good many things since she came to Paris, but they had never seemed to touch her--she had never imagined that they could touch her.... It hurt; it burned like poison....

When she got back to the Hotel de la Roche-Guyon she was told, to her surprise, that M. le Comte had already returned, and that he was waiting for her in her boudoir.

She had not expected him till night, and she went up the stairs very slowly. Part of her was crying out for joy that he was back, would have liked to run to him, to throw her arms round his neck and say to him, "Darling, I don't think of it, now that you are here: it is past, it is untrue." And part of her did not feel thus.

If she had had any intention of referring to the subject she had not, in the event, much chance of doing so. It was to be a day of shocks. Armand was standing with his back to her, looking out of the window giving on to the courtyard; evidently he had been watching her arrival. He turned at her entrance, came forward and kissed her hand, her cheek, and then said gravely, "Horatia, I am sorry to have to scold you."

"What is it?" she asked, genuinely amazed.

"You went yesterday to the English Embassy."

"O, that!" she exclaimed, moved by the ludicrous disparity between this enormity and what she had been hearing of him. And she began to walk across the room, pulling off her gloves.

"And is 'that' so small a thing to you?" demanded Armand angrily. "You know that for nothing in the world would one of us be seen setting foot in a house which is on intimate terms with the Palais Royal, which receives the Orleans princes. Yet you choose a day when I am away, when my cousin cannot accompany you..."

Horatia turned round. "Please be careful what you are saying to me, Armand! I think you cannot realise that you are accusing me--me--of duplicity."

"Eh bien, what is it then?" asked her husband.

"Ignorance, stupidity, what you like, but not that," she said, "How was I to know of these ... these petty restrictions? I am English, and Lady Granville is English, and knew my father."

"Pardon me, you are French now," retorted Armand. "Permit me to remind you that you have duties towards the name which you honoured me by accepting."

His tone a little suggested that the honour was the other way round. The caged feeling came over her for a moment. "I am the prisoner of the tribe," she thought to herself. "Armand will never liberate me." She said coldly, "Lady Granville enlightened me. I am sorry, very sorry, if I have injured your prestige, but it was done in ignorance." With that she turned her back on him once more, and went and sat down by the window. Her husband followed her, biting his lip.

"I beg your pardon for supposing that you knew what you were doing," he said, still rather stiffly. "You see, Horatia, do you not--"

"I see a great many things," she said. "I see that I am to have no friends, no will, no identity of my own. I may not go out when I wish; I may not see you when I wish..."

Suddenly she heard her own voice; it sounded shrill. The ache, the disgust of the afternoon swung back on her. Was she driving him to that? She stopped; and, more electric than a lightning flash, it came to her how most triumphantly she could end this situation. So, rising, she laid her hand on his breast and, looking up at him, said very gently and deliberately,

"Are you really angry with me, Armand?"

Her victory was instantaneous.

*(2)*

Martha, pulling back her lamb's curtains next morning, was, all unsuspecting, like the gaoler who rouses the captive. As the daylight flooded the room Horatia woke more fully to the realisation of an extraordinary weight on her spirits. While she lay there waiting for her coffee the whole of yesterday's scene in the Champs Elysees played itself through again. That woman with her laughing, reddened lips.... There was time to taste shock, and yet she did not taste it fully; the soreness at her heart had in it much more of the most primitive of all passions--jealousy.

Her coffee and rolls came; she could scarcely touch them. She wanted Armand to enter; but he had been out late last night at the bal de l'Opera. He might not come for a long time. Tears began to well out under her lashes; and presently Horatia de la Roche-Guyon, her head half buried in the pillow, was sobbing like a child that cries for it knows not what.

"Bon jour, chere amie!"

She had not heard his knock, nor his entrance. Hastily and stealthily she dabbed at her eyes.

"You are late this morning," observed the Comte cheerfully. "Look at me, not home till three this morning, but already risen.... My darling, what is the matter?"

Horatia, her face nearly concealed by the pillow and the tumbled masses of her hair, murmured something unintelligible.

Armand sat down on the bed. "My angel, what is it? Is it because I scolded you yesterday? But you forgave me.... Look at me, Horatia, and tell me what is the matter." He had gently to draw away the hand which held the handkerchief to her eyes. "Come, my darling--Bon Dieu, what hair you have!" He took up a lock.

"Madame de Beaulieu says it is hideous," sighed Horatia between two little sobs.

"That is because she cannot succeed in buying any like it, I expect," retorted her husband. "Is that why you were crying, my child? Listen then, and I will tell you a secret. The Duchesse is having a wig made as nearly as possible the colour of your hair; she is going to wear it on her fete or on the next saint's day. There's a compliment for you! Do not mind, therefore, what my cousin says. All women are jealous of one another.... Come now, take away that handkerchief and let me kiss you!"

She let him do so, and even clung to him. "Promise me, promise me, that you will always love me, Armand!"

"_The good old phrase again!_" whispered a little imp in the young man's ear. "Foolish, foolish child," he said, smiling his delightful smile. "What do you think I am made of then?"

"You do really forgive me for yesterday?" she murmured, hiding her tear-stained face in his breast. "It must never happen again. I could not bear that anything should come between us.... As long as you are with me, Armand, nothing can."

"My darling," he said, and kissed the top of her head.

"I am very, very sorry about Lady Granville," she went on after a moment, and with a heavy sigh. "Is the Duchesse exceedingly angry with me?"

"Perhaps the slaughter she made of me yesterday will content her," suggested her husband cheerfully.

Horatia clasped him closer, "O poor Armand! I will never, never see Lady Granville again! I will write to her to-day and say so."

When, a few minutes later, Armand had gone, after assuring her again that he would love her as long as the Seine ran through Paris, that she was probably the one woman in the world who could look beautiful after tears, and that he had found the bal de l'Opera last night very dull because he could not hope to come on a lock of her hair peeping out from the hood of a domino, Horatia slipped out of bed and went to her mirror. Was she beautiful, pale and heavy-eyed as she was? She propped her face on her hands, her hair falling about her shoulders in a cloud of sunset, and stared into the glass. As long as the Seine ran through Paris! Would he love her just as much when her colour was not as clear and fresh as now it was, when there were lines on her white forehead, when her bright hair began to lose its lustre ... when, in short, she was no longer young, and, as he called her now, beautiful? Would he?

And would he love her just as much ... or more ... if, if--

She was still gazing, with a dream in her half-smiling eyes, when Martha came to dress her.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*(1)*

Circumstances were beginning to prove, as usual, too strong for Armand de la Roche-Guyon. For all his self-will he was generally at the mercy of his surroundings; too light a bark to struggle with the stream, too buoyant to be wholly swamped by it. In England Horatia had been his circumstances; before her, Laurence de Vigerie; before her, not a few other ladies; and now Paris, his friends, his family had enveloped him again. For it was quite true, as the Duchesse had hinted, that his friends were beginning to tease him about his devotion to his wife, while on the other hand he suspected that his wife would soon come to consider him not devoted enough. This morning's little scene was all very well in its way, but a melancholy prescience whispered to him that the day might dawn when he would find it a bore to keep on assuring Horatia that he loved her. There was no excitement now in the situation, and she was so entirely a captive that he felt his own chains. A certain standard of behaviour was evidently going to be demanded of him, whereas what he craved for was not obligations but diversion. And that the two things he most held in horror, the possibilities of becoming ridiculous and of being made uncomfortable, should descend upon him at once, from different quarters, was rather damnable.

He was in this mood when he crossed the Pont Royal that afternoon, turned to the left and began to walk beside the wall of the Tuileries garden. It was two o'clock, the fashionable hour for promenaders within, but Armand chose the comparative peace of the quay. The sun shone; a little breeze blew off the Seine, and he walked along frowning, no less handsome and attractive for his ill-temper, while two soubrettes, linked arm in arm, turned to look after him speculating on its cause.

Diversion, excitement, a stimulating uncertainty as to his reception--all these had been his at the hands of Madame de Vigerie. Armand had long admired this young, fashionable, and widowed lady, had paid her marked court, and had arrived last summer at the conclusion that, if she would have him--which was by no means certain--he could not do better than to marry her. Then had come his visit to England, and the intrusion of a sudden, genuine passion. But his intention had nevertheless held till the night of that ball in Berkshire. Afterwards he had lain awake till morning fighting the new emotion with the remembrance of the old, then, with a characteristic mixture of coolness and impetuosity, had decided that the new was better. Probably it was, yet he wished that he were at this moment on his way to the familiar drawing room in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, if only to have his present irritation put to flight.

So he walked, swinging his gold and tortoiseshell cane, and behind him, in an open carriage, a lady in lie-de-vin and ermine was overtaking him. With her furs she had a little parasol against the April sun; a boa was wound twice round her neck. She was not pretty, but she was supremely elegant. Leaning forward, she spoke to her coachman; the pace of her horses was moderated, and thus, while still overtaking him, she was able to contemplate at her leisure the figure of the young man to which she drew near. And she did so with a smile on her lips, and her head a little on one side.

Abreast of Armand she called out softly,

"Monsieur de la Roche-Guyon!" and the carriage drew up.

Armand turned. It is always startling when the subject of one's meditations suddenly appears before one, and the slowness with which his hand went to his hat was sufficient proof of the degree to which he was amazed.

"You in Paris--you!" he exclaimed.

"With your permission," said the Vicomtesse, smiling. "Or even, Monsieur, without it."

Armand, hat in hand, stared at her.

"Where have you been all this while?" he asked at last.

"In Italy," replied she. "And you?"

"Further than that," returned the young man rather meaningly, coming nearer to the carriage. He had now regained his composure, and looked at her to see if she understood. "I have--but may I not come and tell you about it?"

"Mon Dieu, is it so tragic as all that?" asked Madame de Vigerie with gravity. "But, my poor friend, I know all about it. You are in the most serious of all scrapes. Yes, I know all about it. Nevertheless, come and see me some day," She rearranged her furs; the coachman looked round for orders.

"When?" asked the Comte eagerly. "At the usual time--three?"

Madame de Vigerie shook her head. "Oh no, not now! I am at home on Tuesdays at eight.--Yes, to the Champs Elysees."

She drove off. So she did not care the snap of a finger ... unless she were dissembling very well. And she had relegated him to the hour of her salon, where, for the sake of a sight of her, he would have to endure all sorts of bores.

Nevertheless, she was back, and Armand was conscious of a distinct lightening of his spirits.

*(2)*

It was, no doubt, a dark and shameful blot on the family blazon that the heir of the house of La Roche-Guyon should be an amateur botanist of some distinction. Not the tragic life-in-death of his wife, nor the unmothered state of his only son was to be compared, in the eyes of the Dowager Duchess, with the fact that Emmanuel, Marquis de la Roche-Guyon was delivered over to a taste which she considered suitable enough in an apothecary but unspeakably derogatory for a man of family. The Marquis, however, never betrayed much discomposure at the sarcasms of his venerable grand-parent. Forty-one years of a not very happy life had taught him calm, and, kindly and unostentatiously courteous though he was to everyone, he went his own way. Despite his name and connections, he had done nothing in the world of politics or diplomacy, and never would; he was merely an ineffective, reserved, tolerant and melancholy gentleman who desired to lead the life of a recluse and did not always succeed in doing it.

It was in accordance with his habits that when he took his walks abroad such exercises were likely sooner or later to lead him past the bookstalls on the quays of the Seine--for he was something of a bibliophile too. On a certain afternoon in April therefore, about ten days after Armand's meeting with the Vicomtesse de Vigerie, he was passing slowly along by the lidded boxes on the Quai Voltaire, when he observed a fashionably dressed and elegant young man turning over the old books at a stall a little further on, and recognised, to his no small surprise, his own brother. Armand was humming a tune between his teeth, and seemed gay above the ordinary; the lamentable old proprietor of the box watched him with respect.

"This is a new avocation for you, mon cher," observed the Marquis, tapping him on the shoulder.

"Just the person I wanted," retorted the young man, glancing up. "Find me that, and I will never call you herbalist or bookworm again." He put into the hand of his elder a slip of paper inscribed in a feminine writing. Emmanuel looked at it and gave it back.

"You are not in the least likely to find that here. It is rather rare."

"Dame! so it seems. I have ruined a clean pair of gloves over the search already. I must go to a bookseller's, I suppose."

"Well, I was going to say that if you want it for yourself or for your wife I have a copy, and would lend it you with pleasure."

"A thousand thanks," replied Armand, turning away from the box. "But I want it for someone else, so that would not do. I must try down the Rue des Saints-Peres. Are you coming my way? No; au revoir then."

He crossed the road; and the Marquis looked after his alert young back with a certain wistfulness before he continued his peregrination.

A little later Armand emerged from a second-hand bookshop in the Rue des Saints-Peres with the coveted volume under his arm. As he did so he saw himself presenting it to Madame de Vigerie. He had really taken a good deal of trouble for her, and probably, in his ignorance, paid twice as much as the book was worth. But that did not matter if Laurence was pleased. He had seen her now three times since their meeting on the Quai des Tuileries--never alone, it is true, nor had he succeeded in penetrating to her real attitude of mind towards him. He intended to make the book an excuse for calling at an hour different from that to which he had been restricted. Since it was not a matter of life and death to him he found it distinctly exciting not to know what she really felt about him. But that was part of Laurence's attraction. Meditating on the pleasant and even piquant prospect opening before him he reached the Hotel de la Roche-Guyon.

Horatia was sitting in the salon, wearing a gown in which he had once expressly admired her--though, as he had already forgotten this fact, the choice had no significance for him. A book lay open in her lap. But as her husband came over to her and kissed her hand, uttering one of the agreeable nothings that came so easily to him, he was instantly aware that she had been waiting for him, that she was on tiptoe with expectation about something. She was looking more than usually beautiful. He told her so, sitting down beside her.

She gave him in return a bright, soft glance, and closed the open book. "I wanted to ask you something, dear," she said. "Do you think we could go down to Brittany soon, next week perhaps.... I should like it so much."

"Tiens! what an odd idea!" said Armand. His voice sounded indolent and vaguely caressing, but in his mind was surprise, considerable distaste, and a premonition of conflict.

"I don't think that it is odd," urged Horatia earnestly. "I enjoyed Kerfontaine so much in the winter. We shall be going there in May, shall we not? and it is nearly May now."

"Yes, if you consider the middle of April to be nearly May," remarked her husband, putting his hands behind his head and smiling at her with a sort of easy indulgence.

"No, that was a foolish thing to say. But surely it would not matter so very much if we did go in April?"

"I am afraid that it would."

Horatia had been gripping the closed book with a curious intensity. "Why would it matter, Armand? I do want so much to be there."

Armand shifted uneasily. "My dear, I am very sorry----"

"But, Armand, if you are really sorry surely you could arrange it? You see, it is the first thing I have ever asked of you."

She looked so lovely and pleading that the young man was annoyed with destiny, for he would have liked to yield to her. But he had not the slightest intention of losing the way he had already made in his recovered friendship with Madame de Vigerie. He unclasped his hands, sat up, and said firmly, "One has one's own engagements and plans, you know, chere amie; it is impossible to put them off and alter them without due cause. I am very sorry, as I said before, but I could not do it."

Horatia leant forward, two bright spots in her cheeks. "Would it then be 'without due cause' if the reason you gave your friends was that I had most particularly asked you to do it?"

Armand raised his eyebrows. "My dear, I am afraid that is the last reason I could ever give them."

It took a second or two for the stinging though unintentional brutality of this to penetrate, so composedly and gently did it slip out. All the more had it the accent of truth.... The brilliant, wandering colour went out of Horatia's face; she raised one hand a little uncertainly, the book slipped from the other. Then she rose.

"I am much obliged to you for being so outspoken," she said in a slow, rather bewildered voice. "I thin. ... I think I rather admire it. It is better to know. You see, I did not really believe what the Duchesse said; now I do. Yes, it is better to know...." She ended vaguely, turned, and began to move towards the door of her boudoir.

"Know what?" asked Armand, uncomfortably conscious that he had struck much harder than he intended. "Horatia, do not go like that. I----"

Horatia did stop, and faced him. "She said that I should make you ridiculous." The words seemed to be forced from her. Then, turning away, and in a very different tone, she added, "But that is impossible, is it not, when you take such good care of yourself!"

"Horatia, listen to me! Do not be so foolish!" cried Armand, springing after her, for she was at the door. But she went through, and he heard the key turn in the lock.

*(3)*

The Comtesse Armand de la Roche-Guyon had gathered in her boudoir all the relics that she cared to preserve of Horatia Grenville, and in the place of honour on the mantelpiece stood a silhouette of her father as a young man, gazing straight in front of him with the spirited yet stony gaze of its kind. And, having locked the door, Horatia went almost mechanically towards it, and flinging herself down in the chair, gave way to a tempest of tears--tears of rage, humiliation, and the bitterest disappointment.

While she had, unaided, put on this dress this afternoon, her hands shaking with excitement, she had acted over the scene. Armand would very naturally be surprised at her request, would raise objections perhaps, but in the end--or at the beginning, for the matter of that--he would ask her why she was so set on going to Kerfontaine. And then she would tell him her secret....

And this was the realisation of that dream, this was the shallow pool to which all the sea of rapture of the past had shrunk! "I love him--I have given him everything--I am to bear his child, and he thinks more of his friends' laughter than of me...." No use to fight that tiny doubt that had been growing lately in her heart, that he did not love her as she loved him.... But what did that matter, doubt or certainty, for she did not love him any more. "I shall not tell him now," was her thought, joined with that other, half vengeful, half wistful, "Ah, if he only knew!"

She looked up with swimming eyes at the silhouette on the mantelpiece. What was her father doing, poor darling, without her? Oh, if she could only have gone with her news to him! A passion of home-sickness came over her; she was indeed alone in a strange land. She had always known that she was setting out into exile, but by Armand's side it could never have been real banishment. Now...

A quarter of an hour later she passed into her bedroom, and, without ringing for her maid, took off her dress, resolving that she would never wear it again, bathed her eyes, put on a neglige and returned to her boudoir. Then, with an heroic attempt at self-discipline, she selected a stiff book from the case and sat down to read it.

*(4)*

M. le Comte de la Roche-Guyon, when his wife's boudoir door was shut in his face, gave a philosophical little shrug of his shoulders and turned away without more ado. He proceeded to his own apartment, made some changes in his attire, and taking up the book for Madame de Vigerie, set out forthwith to bear it to that lady, trusting that on his return the sky would have cleared.

He did not, however, reach her house in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, for under the chestnut trees in the Tuileries garden he happened upon the Vicomtesse herself, seated with two other ladies upon the straw-bottomed chairs that stood there. He sat down beside her, and, her companions being for the moment engrossed with their own conversation, was able to say to her unheard,

"I was coming to see you. I have got your book."

"So soon?" said she. "You are a marvel; a thousand thanks!" And she held out her hand.

The young man shook his head, smiling. "I was coming to see you," he repeated.

Madame de Vigerie smiled too. "Very well," she said, "But not now, for I am not going home. Come some afternoon next week."

Armand's face fell a little. "That is very much deferred payment," he observed. "And perhaps I may not be in Paris."

"Indeed? And where are you going?"

"My wife is absolutely set on going to Brittany at once."

"But why?"

"Heaven alone knows. I do not."

The Vicomtesse considered a moment, the point of her parasol patterning the gravel. Then a sort of flash passed over her countenance, "You will go," she predicted. "So had you not better give me the book now?"

Armand stared at her, nonplussed by the certainty of her tone and by the mischievous amusement in her face. "Mark my words," she continued, "you will not be here next week--though I am quite aware that you were only using that possibility as a threat. Adieu; my friends, you see, are waiting for me. We shall see who is right. I shall be at St. Clair in June; I suppose I must resign myself to wait for the book till then." And so she left him, outraged with the thought that she considered him the plaything of a wife's idle wishes, and he returned, not too well pleased, to the Rue St. Dominique.

But no sooner had he set foot there than he received a message that the Duchesse desired to see him immediately. Up to the Dowager's suite he then mounted, to find his venerable relative playing piquet with her dame de compagnie.

"Aha! here you are at last!" said the Duchesse, evidently in high good humour. "Masson, you can go. Well, my child, what have you to say for yourself?"

Was it possible--incredible though it seemed--that Horatia had been complaining to Madame de la Roche-Guyon? If so, the old lady had evidently not taken her part.

"What do you want me to say?" enquired the Comte, cautiously.

"What do I want you to say? Armand, you are unpayable!" And the Dowager went off into a scream of laughter, causing the little Italian greyhound to spring up shivering in his basket. "Sit down, and tell me why you rushed out of the house directly you had heard the news. I was waiting to send for you to congratulate you."

"To congratulate me? ... On what?" Enlightenment came in the midst of his wonder. "Juste ciel! So that was why----"

"You don't mean to say that you really did not know--that she did not tell you just now?"

Armand sat down, feeling rather dizzy. "No, not a word. She only said that she wanted to go to Brittany at once, and I---- What a fool I was not to guess!"

"In that sentiment," observed his grandmother, "I fully concur. And what did you say about Brittany?"

"I--well, I refused to go."

The Duchesse appealed to the saints. "It is true, I have always known that men were idiots, but I did think that in you, child, resided what little sense there is in the family.... And you refused--you refused! You, to whom she is to give an heir in December, refused her first request!" More to the same effect was proceeding from the Dowager when her grandson, who had made no attempt to defend himself, suddenly got up.

"I have been worse than a fool, I have been a brute," he said. He was rather white. "Forgive me if I go to her now." And waiting neither for further admonitions nor even for permission he hurriedly kissed her hand and left the room.

So Horatia had not read more than four pages of "Locke on the Human Understanding" (which she was finding, if not consoling, at least astringent against tears) when she heard his knock. Upborne, probably, by the philosopher (for it was the last thing that she wanted to do), she rose, unlocked the door in silence, and returning to her place without so much as looking at the intruder, stood there, one hand on the marble mantelshelf.

But Armand too came without a word to her side, and just when--still not turning or looking at him--she imagined that he was going to speak, perhaps to try to take her in his arms, he dropped on one knee, and taking a fold of her neglige put it silently to his lips.

*CHAPTER IX*

*(1)*

In one of the enormous rooms of her chateau of St. Clair, which not even her taste could make other than oppressive, Laurence-Heloise de Vigerie sat waiting for her carriage. The apartment, with its six great windows, its consoles of alabaster, its porphyry vases and chandelier of rock-crystal, still kept its air of pomp from the time of Louvois, unsubdued by flowers or books. Even Madame de Vigerie herself had an air of being in perpetual warfare with her stiff surroundings, an appearance of being at this moment, in her pelisse of lemon-yellow silk and her delicate white jacconet gown, something rather incongruous and sylphlike shut up by mistake in a monument.

Sitting near one of the great porphyry vases she looked impatiently at the clock--monumental also--she tapped with her little foot in its lilac cashmere boot; finally she took a rose out of a jardiniere and began to twirl it round and round. In a moment or two her lips parted in a smile. The scent of the rose reminded her of something.

This time last summer, chance having kept her late in Paris, some of these very roses had been sent by her command from St. Clair. Armand de la Roche-Guyon had been with her when, somewhat faded, they had arrived, and he had asked for one. And she remembered how, afterwards, with the fragrance of the dying roses round her, she had pondered for a little time whether she would marry Armand if he asked her--a contingency obviously likely to occur any day. She had his measure by heart; she knew his fickleness, was perfectly aware that he was the slave of caprice (his own or another's), but she knew, too, that he always came back to her in the end. For her, with her connections, wealth and position, it was no great match, perhaps, the younger son of an impoverished though very ancient house. Yet sometimes ... Well, she had never had to make up her mind!

And, after all, he had fallen under the sway of an empire stronger, momentarily, than hers. He had not come back to her! The news of his English marriage had struck her, it is true, as an affront, but she was persuaded that it was more of a wound to her pride than to her heart. And he would have been so much trouble to keep!

Yet he had some curious quality of charm. How easy, in spite of his defection, it had been to take him back into favour. It was true that she had caused him to feel anything but thoroughly reinstated.... And now she was going to return his wife's visit.--Heigho, what an odd world!

Madame de Vigerie had not seen Horatia, having been out when the bride had called, but Armand had described her. Evidently she was beautiful. But that, in the Vicomtesse's experience, did not count for very much, and certainly her own lack of beauty had never troubled her. Laurence de Vigerie was a finished type of the belle laide, dowered with the attraction which, once it has subjugated, can never lose its hold by the mere passage of time. Her power came from other sources than her complexion or her hair. Passing through life as she did, always a little amused, apparently rather cold, and inclined to experiment, elusive in her relations, absolutely without petty jealousy and very nearly without malice, she had given no cause for scandal, and had driven more men distracted than she cared, sometimes, to remember.

*(2)*

Horatia put down her embroidery and rose. She was dreading this interview. She was sure that she should not like Madame de Vigerie, and she would probably have to see a good deal of her.

Beneath the four upright ostrich plumes which topped her lemon-yellow bonnet, beneath its wide brim lined with Adelaide-blue crepe, Horatia saw the irregular features of the woman who might have been in her place. And Laurence de Vigerie beheld the chosen bride, the woman preferred before her, serious, rather pale, with a crown of red-gold hair and a simple muslin gown. "She is but a child" was her first thought (instantly corrected), and Horatia's, that the Vicomtesse was not beautiful, not even pretty, as she had expected. Among her gifts Madame de Vigerie possessed the double power of making the banalities of ordinary intercourse sound interesting, and of getting them over quickly, for in the course of a few minutes they had been left behind, and the two were conversing on more interesting themes.

"You read a great deal, Madame, do you not?"

"I used to," answered Horatia rather wistfully. "I have always been fond of reading French," she added.

"Yes, indeed," said Madame de Vigerie, "it is easy to see that your knowledge of our tongue is profound. Perhaps if you are not well provided with French books, you would allow me to send you over a few, I daresay the library at Kerfontaine is not very up to date. I know that mine is not, and I have to bring books from Paris. Let me lend you the new book of Hugo's which everyone is devouring, _Notre Dame de Paris_."

Horatia thanked her warmly, and the visitor went on to admire the garden and the fountain, "which I always envy so much," she said.

Horatia, too, looked out of the window at the little figure.

"I am very fond of it," she said, "and I wish I knew something of its history, for I believe that an ancestor of my husband's brought it from Italy, but I have never been able to find out for certain."

Madame de Vigerie gave her a bright and friendly glance. "I can tell you all about it," she was beginning, when the door opened and Armand came in.

He greeted her with composure. "Do not let me deprive my wife of the information which you were about to give her, Vicomtesse," he said. "Unless, indeed, it be some fashionable detail of which I am better left ignorant."

Madame de Vigerie's eyes, as they rested on him, held a little sprite of mockery which he knew very well. "We were discussing Art," she said gravely. "Since you permit it, Monsieur, I will continue. Madame la Comtesse is doubtless aware that her fountain is a copy of Verrochio's famous boy and dolphin at Florence. But you, Monsieur, have not told her how, in the Italian wars of Louis XII, Raoul de Kerfontaine, your grandfather heaven knows how many times removed on the mother's side, being desirous of bringing a fairing to his lady, decided on this not very portable mark of his affection; how it took so long to copy and to convey, that when he got back to Brittany the lady was married to another. So he set it up in his own garden and, I daresay, used often to wander round it in the moonlight, poor gentleman, thinking sad thoughts."

"Vicomtesse," said Armand laughing, "you have made that up!"

"Fi donc, Monsieur!" retorted the guest. "You do not know the history of your own family!"

"He is scandalously ignorant," agreed Horatia. "But, Madame, if I may ask, how do you know it so well?"

"Because," replied Madame de Vigerie, "by an odd chance, the lady of M. de Kerfontaine's blighted affections happened to be an ancestress of my husband's. I can show you the tale in a book at St. Clair--not of course that St. Clair in its present state existed then.... And so M. le Comte has never shown you, Madame, the inscription which the poor Raoul had carved on the base of the statue?"

"Never. But if you, Madame, would remedy his negligence?"

"Willingly," responded the Vicomtesse. "I am never so happy as when I am imparting information."