Chapter VIII: Part 8

Armand unfastened the window and followed them out. The visit was going well. It was long since he had seen Horatia so animated. Feeling that there might be a slight constraint in the situation, he had purposely refrained from coming in until the two women should have broken the ice, and even when he entered had thought it possible that he should find the temperature below freezing point. But you could never tell about women, for they seemed to have taken a fancy to each other. He followed the yellow pelisse and the white muslin down between the lime-trees, wondering what Laurence was thinking about.

"You see," said Madame de Vigerie, "what the poor man thought of women." She took off a glove and traced with a delicate finger the remains of the eroded fettering round the base of the bronze. "_Cor muliebre his aquis mutabilius_," she read, and Horatia fell an instant convert to the continental mode of pronouncing Latin.

"And was the faithless lady happy?" she asked.

"Supremely, I regret to say. It was only sad for M. le Comte's unlucky ancestor. Mais que voulez-vous? He should not have been so slow. And you had never been told this moving tale?"

"Certainly not," responded Armand. "It is derogatory to my ancestor, and for my part I am little disposed to believe it now."

"In the face of that evidence?" asked Madame de Vigerie, pointing to the statue.

"That inscription is a commonplace known to mankind since the days of Horace," retorted the young man. "It is just as true to-day as then, and is therefore no evidence at all."

The Vicomtesse removed her gaze from him. "Madame, you must not let your husband talk in this manner. But the real evidence is at St. Clair, and if you will promise to come and see me soon I will hunt out the old book.--M. le Comte, would you be good enough to see if my carriage is there?"

Armand went obediently, but when he returned, he found his wife and her visitor strayed into the rose-garden, and talking of gardening matters. Not even when putting the Vicomtesse into her carriage had he the opportunity of a word alone with her, for Horatia accompanied them. She had apparently been bidden to St. Clair next day.

"I do not invite you, M. le Comte," was Madame de Vigerie's parting remark. "Since you do not believe the legend, research would only bore you, and I want no unwilling converts."

*(3)*

Tristram Hungerford had been right; the Comte de la Roche-Guyon, young as he was, did consider himself to be thoroughly versed in the ways of women. But there were occasions during the next three or four weeks of his sojourn in Brittany when the connoisseur found himself hopelessly puzzled by the behaviour of the two nearest specimens of the sex, women, too, of whose idiosyncrasies he might have been supposed to have an intimate knowledge--his wife that was and his wife that might have been. That these two, of characters so different, placed in a mutual relationship not of the most comfortable, should become, not mere acquaintances but, apparently, actual friends, was beyond him. And since, in that short space of time, this miracle had happened; since two days did not pass that Laurence did not come over to see Horatia, or Horatia go driving with Laurence, and since miracles were not within his sphere of belief, Armand refused to credit the evidence. He thought that the two women were playing at being friends, for some reason unknown.

But, since Armand had, along with the scepticism, the logical mind of his race, he did not long occupy this position. He could not discover a motive strong enough to produce so much dissimulation. Horatia had nothing very much to gain from intimacy with Madame de Vigerie; she would naturally be predisposed against the woman who might have had her place. And as for the Vicomtesse, Armand was not fatuous enough to imagine that she was consciously cultivating a friendship with the wife in order that she might see more of the husband. Indeed, Madame de Vigerie seemed to take especial care that no such flattering thought should find even a momentary lodging in his mind. If he was not definitely excluded from their society--which would in a sense have been complimentary--he was made to feel that his presence or absence was immaterial. His position began to be rather galling, and he strongly suspected Laurence, with her diabolical intuition, of being pleasantly aware of the fact.

He never saw her alone--a consummation which could easily have been brought about had she wished it. Already she had begun to have her house full of guests; their own, chiefly members of the family, would soon be upon them. But one day he got an opportunity when, coming home from a ride, and going into the garden in search of Horatia he perceived, seated by the fountain in a lilac muslin gown, not his wife, but Madame de Vigerie.

"At last!" said he, and approached. The Vicomtesse's large hat lay on the ground by her side; the low sun struck gleams from her brown hair. At his step she looked round.

"How much I envy you this garden," she said, undisturbed. "Above all I love this little green fountain."

Armand sat down on the rim of the basin, facing her.

"Permit me to offer it to you," he said. "It should have been yours this four hundred years or more."

"Ah, my fickle ancestress!" said Madame de Vigerie, dabbling her hand in the water. Goldfish from all parts hurried towards it.

"What a bait!" said Armand below his breath.... "Where is my wife?"

"Showing a visitor round the garden. You should be there, too."

"Doubtless," replied the Comte, without stirring. He crossed one booted leg over the other, and looked at her. She withdrew her hand, and, shaking it, dried it on her handkerchief.

"Laurence," said the young man suddenly, "don't you think that you are treating me very badly?"

"O, I hope not!" said the Vicomtesse quite seriously.

"We were friends once," said Armand.

"And now--surely not enemies?"

"On my soul, I had rather have you for an enemy than for--an acquaintance!"

"A compliment?" asked the Vicomtesse. "Yes, I suppose it is.... Armand, I have fallen in love ... with your wife."

"If that is, in return, a compliment to me, I thank you."

"Really, I do not know whether it is or no. If you will permit me to say so, I do not know how she came to marry you."

"You find me not worthy?" he inquired.

For the first time Madame de Vigerie smiled, shaking her head slightly. "I will not mount into the pulpit, mon ami, however much you press me. The day when I shall make you a homily is, I hope, distant. Meanwhile, I wish you every happiness, and a son like his mother.... Here they are returning."

When the visitor had departed and Armand, too, had vanished, the two friends walked up and down under the limes.

"I have a house full to-morrow," said Madame de Vigerie. "When can you come over and see me quietly, ma chere. Of course you will both dine with us next week."

"The Marquis is coming next week," said Horatia, "and Claude-Edmond. And, rather to my horror, the Duchesse has expressed a desire to stay here. It is a royal command."

"You will be as busy as I for the next few weeks, then?"

Horatia nodded. "Yes, except that this house is not so capacious as St. Clair. I shall not be able to get much time for reading, I expect. I have finished _Ourika_, however, and the other tales of Madame de Duras. I did not admire them very much; perhaps I ought to have done so."

"They had a vogue some years ago," said Madame de Vigerie, "probably because she was a great lady. But I do not think that any woman who keeps a famous salon, as she did, can do much else."

"I do not want to write," said Horatia, "but it is a dream of mine to have a little salon--a literary salon--some day. But my husband does not encourage it."

"Monsieur le Comte is quite right," responded Madame de Vigerie rather unexpectedly. "To have a salon is a life in itself. It is true that the possession of one is a Frenchwoman's ambition in youth, and her glory in old age. But, mon Dieu, what sacrifices does it not entail on her! She can be neither wife, mother, nor lover, and in friendship she can have but one preference--for the most illustrious man whom she can attract to her gatherings. To retain him there she must sacrifice everything else; she and all her surroundings must be vowed to his cult. If she cannot procure such a great man for the pivot of her circle she must wear herself out in attentions to a host of lesser lights.--My dear, you are too good for either of these roles; do not regret your lost salon!"

*(4)*

Madame de Vigerie, being gifted with the seeing eye, found Horatia pathetic. "She is losing him, and she knows it," was her verdict now. In this she was perhaps attributing to the girl more clearness of vision than she had yet attained to, but the tragedy of the situation she had not overestimated.

On arrival at Kerfontaine, Horatia had tried hard to pretend that things were as they had been in January. But the very fact of the attempt had slain the chance of its success. It was idle to wander round the rose-garden, now in fullest leaf and soon to be ablaze; it had been warmer there under the early snow. Something had gone out of the spirit of the place, and not all the cajolery of May could bring back the thrill of the bare boughs. And yet it was not that she wanted her honeymoon over again. She had no yearnings for the romping happiness of the winter. Then she had been a girl; now she was a woman. Even in Paris she had realised that the time had come for her and Armand to pass on to another stage--together, and now in the shadow of motherhood she could understand much that had been dark to her before. Never again could their love fail to satisfy, for it had found its fulfilment.

Something of this she tried to hint to Armand one May evening in the garden. He only said, "You amuse me when you look so serious, Horatia. I don't understand what you are talking about. Those furs become you," (it was a chilly evening,) "you had better wear them always."

They were the words he had used in the winter, and she had thrilled then to hear them. Now they were like a sacrilege. O, why would he not understand! He must enter with her into this new world. She could not, would not know its joys, and perhaps its fears, alone.

She came one day into his sanctum, where he was doing something absorbing with a fowling-piece.

"Are you very busy, dear? Yes, I see you are. I will come another time."

She looked very animated and charming, so the young man laid down the gun and said with a smile. "Of course I will, mon amie. What is it that you want of me?"

"I want you," replied Horatia, mysteriously sparkling, "to come upstairs to the old armoury. I have something to ask you."

He followed her up the staircase, looking at the little curls on the back of her neck. She led him to the big, disused room on the first floor which still held the remains of what had been a fine collection of armour, until the tenantry of Armand's maternal grandfather had ransacked it for weapons during the Revolution, the better to defend him.

"I do not know what you will say to my idea," began Horatia, standing in the midst of the rusty accoutrements. "I thought--but, of course, you will say if you do not like it--that all this armour could be cleaned, and cleared out and arranged along the corridors. There is not very much of it."

"And then?"

"Then ... if it were possible, this big room might be partitioned into two, or even into three, for nurseries. But perhaps you would rather not...."

It was a delightful subject for discussion, and Horatia was quite ready to discuss, even to give way altogether if he did not approve of her scheme, for she thought it might seem to him rather revolutionary.

"Mais, mon Dieu, for what do you take me?" asked her husband, laughing. "Do you think that I care where these rusty old pots are put? Turn them out anywhere you like, mon amie. It was not necessary to bring me up here to ask that!"

"But the partitioning----"

"Of course. It is an excellent idea. Do just as you like." And he turned to go.

"But, Armand, I thought you would advise me about that. You see, if the day nursery were at this side, where the sun ..."

The faintest shade of impatience appeared on the young man's face. "My angel," he said, "I am no expert on nurseries. You want a married woman--and a mason. Get Thiebault's people down from Paris to do it properly, if you like; or there is a good man at Rennes. I give you carte blanche, only you must not expect me to arrange it for you. Will you forgive me now--the gamekeeper is coming in a few minutes."

And Armand's thought was, as he ran down the stairs, that of all people he would least have expected Horatia Grenville to turn into a Martha of domesticity. No doubt it was a good thing for the prospects of his heir, but what if he were going to be pursued by entreaties for advice about this and that detail! He was not in the least disappointed in his marriage. He was a Frenchman; marriage was an affair of arrangement, not of rapture. He had been luckier than most, for he had had the rapture too. He possessed a beautiful wife, approved of by his family, who might be trusted never to put him in the always ludicrous position of the betrayed husband. He would also have an heir. If, now, his wife would but consent to settle down, after their brief idyll of passion, into the dignified mistress of his household, and would not make uncomfortable claims upon him, he need never regret having lost his head over her in Berkshire. Her perceptions must be much less acute than he had imagined if she could not see that the bonds of matrimony in her adoptive country held in a different fashion from those of her own. However, no doubt everything would right itself in time; if would be a good thing when the boy was born.

Upstairs, among the plundered armour, Horatia stood with her head against the window and cried.

*CHAPTER X*

*(1)*

Yet, three weeks later, on the eve of the arrival of her guests, Horatia was banishing the paperers and plasterers from the nearly finished nurseries.

She had made a valiant effort, not only to hide from Armand the fact that he had deeply wounded her by his lack of interest, but even to deny it to herself. At any rate she would not give way to pique in the matter; she would carry it through alone, and it was very kind of him not to have raised difficulties. Henceforth she must try to accommodate herself to him in every way, and she set forward almost with ardour on this fatal course of submission--fatal because, if she had but realised it, nothing appealed less to her husband than such an attitude. He preferred something more spirited. Madame de Vigerie, had she consulted her on this as on other matters, would have given her very different advice on the management of men, but Horatia was too proud and too loyal for such a course. She kept telling herself that she must make allowances for differences of race; in which consideration it was not given to her to see that if she herself had been French she would not have taken the affair so seriously.

And when she had got rid of the workmen she had to entertain her guests. The Dowager Duchess had not been to Kerfontaine for many years. Her coming was evidently designed as a great honour to the young couple. It was certainly a stirring event. Armies of servants preceded and accompanied her; she travelled in her own antiquated carriage. Jean had wept in his mistress's presence at the news of her approach, but whether from joy or terror or a mixture of both Horatia was not sure, and indeed the house was moved to its foundations. Would the Duchesse find her rooms cold, damp, or uncomfortable? It was some sort of a consolation to feel certain that she was not likely, in that case, to suffer silently.

However, after a few days, Madame de la Roche-Guyon, finding her quarters to her liking, commanded that her old friend the Comtesse de Leridant should also be invited, and she came, an old lady of aggressive piety, hung with medals, who cast up her eyes all day long at "dear Monsignor de la Roche-Guyon" when the latter paid a flying visit. Madame de Beaulieu also came, the family having intimated to Horatia that she must ask her, and flirted with Armand under the nose of her husband, whom she brought with her. The Marquis de Beaulieu, a middle-aged, bald-headed and very uninteresting nobleman attempted unsuccessfully to retaliate by flirting with Horatia. Finally, Emmanuel and his son completed the party, and in the youngest of her guests Horatia found an unexpected well of consolation.

Claude-Edmond, solemn as ever, had always shown a disposition to attach himself to his young aunt, and it sometimes occurred to Horatia that she might try to make him less like a budding philosopher and more of an ordinary boy. She had once or twice asked him what games he played at the Lycee; no clear impression had resulted from his answers, and at any rate he could not play alone. The only relaxation he seemed to permit himself at Kerfontaine was a game of chess in the evening with his father. And always it was, "Ma tante, if you are walking may I accompany you?" "Ma tante, may I assist you to gather the flowers?" Sometimes Horatia pitied him intensely; sometimes she could have shaken him.

Then one day, snatching a moment from her guests to go up and look at the nurseries, she overtook Claude-Edmond slowly climbing the staircase that led to them.

"Where are you going, Claude?" she asked. "If you are looking for the old armoury, you will not find it, I am afraid."

The boy turned an amazed face to her. "Has it gone? What is there, then?"

"It has been turned into nurseries. Would you like to see them?"

Mounting beside her, her nephew assented. "But for what purpose do you need nurseries? I have not seen any baby."

"There is no baby yet," returned Horatia gravely. "But I feel sure that before very long the marchande des choux will bring me one, or perhaps I shall find one under a cabbage in the garden, as you know, Claude, one does find them. So I thought it best to begin getting things ready."

"But certainly," agreed Claude-Edmond with his wisest air. "Though I have been told that it is not the marchande des choux after all..."

"Never mind," interrupted Horatia quickly. "Come in and see how the room is altered. It is ready for the furniture now."

No one would have dreamed that the rooms had once been an armoury. Horatia had followed the new mode of a trellised paper covering not only the walls but the ceiling also, so that the effect, as Madame de Vigerie had remarked, was of a cage of flowers to imprison the angelic visitant. But Horatia intended all the arrangements to be English, and this design, which she had never told her husband, she now found herself confiding to the small French boy who stood drinking in all she said with such serious attentive eyes.

"Nobody knows, Claude. Shall we keep it as our secret? When I was a little girl at home, my bed stood here, as it were, and from it I could see in the morning the birds hopping about in the trees outside--a silver birch it was--and singing, singing..."

Oh, home, home, and the unforgettable memories, bitter and sweet at once, of those early mornings!

"You are not crying, ma tante?" asked Claude-Edmond a little anxiously, as she stopped.

"No, no ... I was only wishing there were a birch tree here too."

"We could easily find one and put it there," said the boy, at once sympathetic.

Horatia smiled through the mist in her eyes. "There is something I should like almost better--a big screen such as I used to have at the foot of my bed, all covered over with pictures from children's books."

"But that we could make," suggested the practical Claude-Edmond.

"Why, of course we could!" exclaimed his aunt, struck with the idea. "Claude, you are a genius! There are plenty of screens in the house.... We will do it up here, secretly, just we two--if you like, Claude."

"_If I like!_" exclaimed the boy, enraptured.

And that was why the mistress of the house often spent so much time in reposing herself in the afternoon, and why Emmanuel sometimes sought his son in vain at the same hour. Both absented might have been found, surrounded by litter and paste, playing at being children again in the nursery.

Even Madame de Vigerie did not share their secret, for her great house was now so full of guests that the informal intercourse of the early summer was impossible, though visits of ceremony were exchanged on both sides. Life at Kerfontaine was however less unsociable than in the Hotel de la Roche-Guyon, for in the evening all the inmates gathered round the domestic hearth, playing bouts-rimes, cards or loto, or doing fancy-work. On one such evening in mid-June all the company was thus assembled in the salon: the Duchesse, Mme. de Leridant, Emmanuel and M. de Beaulieu were playing cards, Claude-Edmond was deep in a book, while Horatia and the Marquise de Beaulieu, the one embroidering, the other painting on gauze, were listening to the gallantries of a superannuated beau of the neighbourhood, who had been dining with them, when suddenly the Vicomtesse de Vigerie was announced.

She came in looking, for the first time, to Horatia's eyes, almost beautiful, and having the effect of being at once pale and flushed, breathless and collected. Horatia hurried to greet her, and Armand to relieve her of the cloak about her shoulders.

"I have news," said she, "news of the greatest importance. You have not heard? ... I thought that perhaps M. le Duc... Let me pay my respects first to the Duchesse." Smiling, excited, she curtsied to that venerable dame, and then said, like a herald, "The Regent has left England for Italy!"

*(2)*

If Horatia was in any doubt as to the significance of Madame de Vigerie's announcement that evening, and puzzled at the enthusiasm with which it was received, the weeks that followed amply enlightened her. That the Duchesse de Berry, Regent for her little son, should have left her royal father-in-law at Holyrood, meant only one thing, that she was meditating a bold stroke of some kind. Neapolitan by birth, she gravitated naturally towards Italy, and for the next month, while she was slowly traversing Holland, Germany and Switzerland, a continual state of ferment reigned at Kerfontaine and St. Clair. Madame de Vigerie was in exceptionally close touch with the princess, for she had a cousin in her small retinue, and St. Clair became in consequence a kind of Mecca for the Legitimists of the neighbourhood. The atmosphere of intrigue grew still thicker when in mid-July the devotees heard that Madame de Berry, arrived at Sestri, had opened direct communication with some of the Legitimist leaders, settled there to that end, and was proportionately agitated when, a little later, it was announced that Carlo Alberto of Sardinia, under pressure from the French ambassador at Turin, had intimated that the princess must leave his territory. However, as the Duchesse did not fail piously to point out, good emerged in this case from evil, for Marie-Caroline in consequence removed to Massa, and here she could conspire in comfort, since its ruler had refused to recognise Louis-Philippe. Hero indeed, cordially received, and with the ducal palace at her disposal, she set up a little court, and now the question was how best to prepare for the rising which was to take place in the West when the Regent should set foot in France to claim the heritage of her son.

Before, however, this matter became at all pressing, Horatia's guests had gradually drifted away--the Duchesse back to Paris, Emmanuel and his son on another visit. M. and Mme. de Beaulieu were the last to leave. Unknown to Horatia, the Marquise signalised her departure by a speech which was not without its consequences.

"A thousand thanks for your charming hospitality, my dear cousin," she had said to Armand as they stood for a moment together on the steps. "Now that I am no longer able to play guardian angel, do not make too conspicuous use of your freedom and go to see a certain lady too often!"

A dozen people might have said these words to Armand without offence, but he had never loved his kinswoman, and his displeasure was instant on his face. The Marquise laughed her high little laugh.

"Touche?" she enquired. "Yes, I counsel you to be careful, Don Juan. I have warned our dear Horatia not to put too much faith in these constant political interviews at St. Clair."

"I can hardly credit you with so much vulgarity," retorted Armand freezingly, and the Marquise went unescorted down the steps.

Although the departure of the Duchesse was a great relief, and although Horatia always preferred Madame de Beaulieu's room to her company, it was a little dull when the party had broken up. August was over the land, hot and languid; the country had lost its freshness, the gardens flagged. And since Madame de Vigerie, and Armand with her, had thrown herself with ardour into the scheme for organising revolt in Brittany, she was really too busy for Horatia to see much of her. Armand, too, was always riding hither and thither. On one occasion he went as far as Nantes, to interview the newly-formed Royalist committee there, and talked sometimes of crossing the Loire into Vendee, where the embers of the great insurrection of '93 were being fanned to flame. But though these avocations took him so much away from her Horatia was not sorry. She felt that she had misjudged him; he _was_ capable of enthusiasm for a cause, and a losing cause, and his attitude about the Lilies had not been a pose, as she had sometimes been tempted to think. That nothing would ever come of these efforts (as she was convinced) did not displease her, and she never imagined her husband paying any penalty for conspiracy about which there seemed to be so much unguarded talk.

She had therefore no protests for him when he announced, one morning at the end of August, that he proposed to ride over to sound an old gentleman living some miles away in the direction of Guemene. This person was a rich Royalist of an exceedingly miserly disposition, who, could he be induced to unlock his coffers for the cause, would be worth gaining. But Horatia felt more than usually lonely after her husband had gone; it was now increasingly difficult for her to read, for she seemed to have lost her powers of concentration, and the attempt made her head ache. So in the afternoon she drove over to St. Clair to see her friend--and had, on the way, a curious hallucination of seeing Armand, or someone exactly like him and his horse, appear for a moment on the road that crossed her own. But he was too far off for her impression to be anything but a surmise, and she supposed she was mistaken.

Disappointment awaited her at St. Clair. Madame la Vicomtesse was not receiving, and Horatia was fain to drive home again. Armand returned from his expedition only in time to change his clothes for dinner. He was very cheerful and conversational during the meal, and it was not till the servants had left the room that Horatia asked suddenly,

"Armand, have you a double in these parts?"

"Not that I am aware of," responded her husband tranquilly, without looking up from the apple that he was peeling. "Why?"

"Because, when I went over to St. Clair this afternoon, I saw someone so like you in the distance, and of course it could not have been you--unless you changed your mind, and did not go to M. des Charnieres after all."

"I do not know who it could have been, but it certainly was not I," responded Armand, the apple-paring steadily growing in length. "So you went to see Madame de Vigerie this afternoon?"

"I went, but I did not see her. She was not receiving. Tell me about your visit to M. des Charnieres."

"It was not a success," returned the emissary, shrugging his shoulders. "The old gentleman is not going to part with his money for anything less than absolute certainty. He is of a meanness that leads him into curious extravagances. Conceive, ma chere, that when he goes to Paris, he so hates paying hotel bills that he has bought and furnished a house at each of the stages. Of course he has had to instal servants also, but he can bear all that better than paying at the time for a night's board and lodging. He received me politely enough, in the only living-room of the chateau that he occupies, and, taking snuff the whole time, he detailed to me the various reasons why the Regent could never succeed in her attempt. I shall not waste my energies over him again."

*(3)*

The long mirror in Madame de Vigerie's salon, which terminated not far from the floor in a marble shelf supported on curved legs, held the reflections of a Psyche in marble, many thin-legged gilt chairs, a fete champetre after Watteau, and of two persons seated, pen in hand, on opposite sides of a chilly inlaid table, and sedulously bent over sheets of paper. The scribes were the mistress of the house and Armand de la Roche-Guyon, and for at least an hour they had been copying a list of the names of persons willing to bear arms for the Duchesse de Berry in the Pontivy division.

The Comte finished his task the first, but Madame de Vigerie, following with one taper finger the roll of names, proceeded with hers for a few moments longer, though she could scarcely have been unconscious that the young man opposite, leaning back in his chair, was gazing at her in a manner not specially suggestive of political absorption.

At last she too came to the end.

"There are a hundred and forty more names in the other list," she said, biting the feathers of the pen, and looking across at her fellow copyist.

"My fingers are quite stiff," protested Armand. "What yours must be I cannot think."

"I am afraid, mon ami, that yours are not used to the pen," remarked the Vicomtesse. "Indeed, I do not know what they are used to."

"Well, perhaps they will handle the sword one day," returned the Comte unperturbed. "I know well that you do not think them capable of it, but you will see Madame!"

"You would never do for a soldier," said she. "You are too lazy and too insubordinate.--De grace, do not leave the table until you have put your list into some sort of order! Then give it to me."

"Insubordinate, forsooth!" muttered Armand, obeying her. "And lazy, ma foi! Do not ask me to copy any more lists for you!"

"I shall not have the opportunity of doing so," said the Vicomtesse, taking the papers that he handed over. "I am thinking of returning to Paris next week.

"Great Heavens, why? Next week--it is only the beginning of September!"

"I know," murmured Madame de Vigerie, busy with the papers. "But I have to go.... One, two, three, five--where is page four?"

"Confound page four! Laurence, cease being a conspirator and be a human woman.... You cannot go suddenly like that!"

"Four, five, six, seven, eight," finished the Vicomtesse. "Please give me one of the pins at your elbow. I am not going to Paris for the cause, but for my own affairs. I regret it, but I shall have to go. Do not look so sulky; it is not polite."

In answer to this Armand got up, and, turning his back on her with very little ceremony, went to the window. Laurence de Vigerie immediately stopped arranging her papers, and, had he but known it, there was a very different expression in her eyes when his own gaze was removed from her, and she looked at him unwitnessed.

"I shall follow you to Paris," announced the Comte de la Roche-Guyon after a moment's silence.

"Indeed you will not," riposted Madame de Vigerie. "For one thing you are not to leave your wife. I am sorry to deprive myself of her company."

"I wish," broke out the young man petulantly, swinging round from the window, "that you would leave my wife out of this!"

The Vicomtesse laid down the lists and rising went over to him. "Listen to me, Armand," she said quietly. "We know each other very well ... at least, I know you very well. I am your friend; you know that--but I shall never be anything else to you. I have much feeling for your wife, and I shall never permit you, if I can prevent it, to do anything that may wound her. If you follow me to Paris, if you come here again, as you did last Wednesday when you meant to go to see poor M. des Charnieres, I shall not admit you. When you return to Paris in the ordinary course of events, with your wife, I shall be very glad if you come and see me as usual; and she has been good enough to ask me to visit her.... Now do not bear me malice for speaking plainly, and let us be friends again."

Armand looked down at the little hand which she laid for an instant on his folded arms, but which, perceiving the tremor which ran through him at her touch, she instantly withdrew.

"I wonder," he said slowly, "if there is such a thing as a good devil? If there is, you are it."

"Merci! Well, now my homily is over, shall we copy the other list?"

"Not now," said Armand, his eyes burning. "Give it to me and I will copy it for you at home.... No, do not fear, I will not disturb the mysteries of your preparations for departure by bringing it in person. I will send it.... Good-bye, then, till Paris; I do not know when that will be." He took her hand and kissed it coldly; and thereafter made his exit with a good deal of dignity.

And the mirror then reflected a curious thing; the little figure of Madame de Vigerie sitting once more at the marble table with her hands locked over her eyes--not at all the untouched moralist. Fickle, selfish, worthless, she knew Armand to be all these, but directly he was gone she wished him back. He was too light to be worth a moment's serious thought; why, then, did she think of him so much? Sometimes, when he had been with her, she had a vision of what he would be in thirty years' time, a cynical viveur stained with the print of past and present excesses; sometimes she wished that she could save him, but did not see any way. Sometimes she had a strange maternal yearning towards him. But now, this afternoon, when she had spoken so plainly, there was something more in her heart--dismay, and a sense of conflict.

When the list of names arrived in a couple of days' time, it was addressed in Horatia's writing and had no enclosure with it.

*CHAPTER XI*

*(1)*

It was at Chartres, on the homeward journey to Paris, that Armand's ingenious idea first occurred to him, and that he matured it, pacing by moonlight round the Place des Epars. During that promenade there was fully revealed to him the means whereby he might break Madame de Vigerie's friendship with his wife.

The fortnight which had followed the Vicomtesse's departure from St. Clair had given him ample time for reflection. That he should be prevented from seeing as much as he wished of Laurence because Laurence had entered upon a tiresome and totally unnecessary friendship with Horatia, was preposterous. This friendship was evidently the cause of Madame de Vigerie's very annoying attitude towards him. It behoved him to take some step about it. Still more did he see the necessity of this when he discovered part of the reason why Horatia was suddenly as anxious to get back to Paris as she had been to come down to Brittany. She missed Madame de Vigerie.

And this, it seemed to Armand, was carrying matters too far. It was ridiculous in itself; worse, it put him, in his own eyes at least, in a ludicrous position. Moreover, Horatia's submissive attitude had finished by getting on his nerves. Not that he was dissatisfied with his bargain; every husband, he supposed, had something to put up with. Only he intended to have what he wanted in another quarter to boot.

Horatia was far enough from guessing the source of the preoccupation which was visible in him during the last few days of their stay at Kerfontaine, nor had she the faintest idea why he was in such good spirits the morning that they left Chartres. He judged it wiser, however, not to put his plan into operation for two or three days after their return to the Hotel de la Roche-Guyon, which still lacked the presence of Emmanuel and his son, but which was re-adorned by that of the Duchesse. On the fourth morning he came into Horatia's boudoir looking unusually grave, with his hands full of papers.

"I have something to tell you, my dear, which you will not like hearing, I am afraid," he said, looking down at her as she sat at her writing table, an unfinished letter to her father under her hand.

Horatia's colour went. "No bad news from England, I hope?" she said, and looking at her frail, startled face, Armand had a momentary pang of remorse for what he was about to do. But it did not turn him from his purpose, and he told her, gently, and with apparent consideration, that all communication between the Hotel and Madame de Vigerie must cease for the present. The Government was opening a wakeful eye upon both parties and was only waiting for some tangible evidence of conspiracy to move against them. He had this information, he said, from an unimpeachable source.

Horatia said very little, only her eyes slowly filled with tears, and seeing this Armand went away to the mantelpiece behind her. He was enjoying his ingenuity less than he had expected.

"Then I cannot write to her, for you will not be seeing her either?" came his wife's voice after a moment.

"No, certainly I shall not be seeing her," replied the Comte, studying the Rector's coal-black profile, and wishing that this further sacrifice to truth were not involved in his plan. "It would be very serious for her if she became further suspect to the Government; it would be very serious for me also. Even my friend might lose his place if it were known that he had warned us. I daresay that it will only be for a time.... Of course I need not ask for your promise, Horatia, that you will not communicate with her in any way?"

She made no answer, and looking round Armand saw that she had her handkerchief to her eyes, though not a sound escaped her. He bit his lip, hesitated, then went and bent over her.

"My dear, I am so sorry," he said--and he _was_ sorry. "See, I must go this evening and tell her--she does not know yet--and you would like to write just this once to her, would you not? and I will take the letter for you."

*(2)*

Some compensation for the discomfort of this little scene was undoubtedly afforded to its author by the reflection that the Vicomtesse would not be so easy to dupe. Conceivably, even, he might fail to persuade her of his good faith. The prospect of a battle of wits was exhilarating, if momentous.

But his star, good or evil, fought for Armand, putting into his pocket Horatia's depressed note to her friend--convincing in that she, at least, had no doubts--surrounding Madame de Vigerie that evening with an unusually large circle of habitues, and thus giving the Comte de la Roche-Guyon the opportunity of displaying in the midst of them so gloomy and dejected an air that his hostess could not fail to observe it, and yet was unable at once to penetrate to its cause. At last she beckoned him aside into the embrasure of a window.

"What on earth is the matter with you this evening?" she demanded. "You look as if you had been to a funeral."

Armand did not smile. On the contrary he told her his tale, garnishing it, as was necessary for her more expert ear, with preciser details. The Vicomtesse was plainly staggered.

"But that is absurd!" she ejaculated. "The Government cannot possibly connect--Tiens, I will ask M. de Chateaubriand before he goes." And she looked across to where the great man, his fine white head supported on his hand, was standing in a favourite attitude with his arm on the chimney-piece, an elevation which his want of stature must have rendered difficult of comfortable attainment.

Armand laid a hand on her arm. "I implore you to do nothing of the sort. It will ruin my friend if this gets about. It is far best to submit, for prudence' sake, to precautions which may only be temporary. Needless to say that I intend, however, to come and see you sometimes--if you, too, will run the risk--but, of course, it cannot be openly.... Meanwhile, here is a note which I promised my wife to bring; but you must on no account communicate with her."

"But if I am to see you occasionally, I can communicate through you," protested Madame de Vigerie, still amazed.

"This once, yes, for she knows that I am here, but in the future, to avoid alarming her, I shall not tell her when I come. Perhaps, indeed, it will be better for me not to come for a few weeks. It will depend on what my friend says."

But here the Vicomtesse, visibly perplexed, was reft from him by M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, desiring to take his leave... And Armand's luck held, for Chateaubriand, head as he was of the Royalist Committee of Paris, strongly disapproved of the tendency to push matters to too sudden an issue displayed by the younger and more extravagant spirits of the party, and he cast a glance of disapproval upon the Comte de la Roche-Guyon.

"Do not, Madame," he said in a low tone, "commit any imprudence just now. The time is not ripe, and the Government is on the watch." He bowed over her hand, and passed on.

After this unexpected reinforcement it seemed to the Comte more diplomatic not to outstay the rest, as he often did, but of a prudence more finished to leave Madame de Vigerie still under the empire of M. de Chateaubriand's warning and his own unusual caution--his, who had often been reproached by her for recklessness--and uneasy, perhaps, at the possible cessation of his visits. But before he left the Vicomtesse had found time to scribble a pencil note to Horatia (which he punctually delivered) and to say that if it must be so, she could see him alone next Friday, but that she did not wish him to run risks. To which he replied with suitable gravity that if he considered it unwise, he would not come, and so departed, having accomplished his object and gained to boot the spice of clandestine intercourse.

He had, moreover, the fortitude not to go on the appointed Friday after all, and, when he appeared the following week in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, to come armed with so many statistics of the progress of Royalism in the West, and to keep so strictly to conversation on the Duchesse de Berry's plans, that Madame de Vigerie was thoroughly deceived. But gradually, almost as imperceptibly as September merged into October, and the scorched leaves said farewell to the trees of the Luxembourg and the Tuileries, the stolen meetings lost something of the political character which had given them birth. Laurence de Vigerie was hardly conscious of the change, or, at least, she shut her eyes to it. She only knew that she missed him when he did not come. And Armand came more and more frequently.

*(3)*

And so, after all, the object for which Horatia had wanted to return to Paris--Laurence's society--was not to be hers. She did not seem to desire that of anyone else, and yet she was very lonely. She went out driving, perhaps, for an hour or two, but she neither paid nor received calls now. Always once a day at least Armand would come to see her. He was very bright and very polite, and almost punctilious in his enquiries after her health, but it was apparent to her that, these courteous formalities at an end he was anxious to make his exit, to pursue his own avocations, whatever they might be. She did not attempt to detain him. She would reply to him cheerfully, never admit that she had a headache or felt tired, and he would kiss her hand and say, "Do not wear out your eyes over that embroidery, my dear; why not go to the Rue Neuve des Augustins and order as much as you want?"

Once or twice when he had shut the door and gone out, and the great house seemed settled into silence, she lay back on her couch and cried a little. She was very homesick, A dreadful lassitude took possession of her, and she began to feel afraid. Horatia was not used to illness. On the few occasions when she had had a sore throat or some such slight indisposition, the Rector had read to her by the hour, and enquiries would come twice a day from Tristram, accompanied by flowers or grapes or the latest "Edinburgh Review" which he had ridden into Oxford to fetch for her. All this attention she had then taken for granted, almost as her due, and now that she could not longer command it she seemed to herself but a poor creature after all, for she had come to have only one conscious wish, that some one should take care of her and understand. It was not that these new relatives were not considerate, but that their solicitude seemed to spring from a different source, and sometimes it almost irritated her. She felt as if she were in a palace, stifled by the precautions taken to ensure the safe entrance into the world of an heir apparent.

But at the worst she found always a spring of secret joy, and this was in itself a surprise. Before her marriage she had never been able to analyse her feelings about children. Just as she had supposed that in some distant future she would marry (in spite of her protestations to the contrary) so also she imagined that she would have children of her own. But that she should ardently desire to hold her own child in her arms was an astonishment. In the picture she had made of him he was never a very small baby. He appeared to her always as a child of eighteen months or two years, and he had red-gold curls and grey eyes. It was only after some time that she realised she was thinking of a miniature of herself which hung in her father's bedroom. It had never so much as occurred to her that Maurice might be like Armand. For as she had settled that the child would be a boy, so had she fixed upon the English form of his name, by which she meant always to call him. He would of course have a string of French names; she had heard them several times: Maurice after his father, whose second name it was (and fortunately Maurice was an English name as well, though her English pronunciation of it would probably give offence), and Stanislas after the Duc, and Victor after the Dowager (suppose he should be like the Dowager!), and Etienne after her own father, and Marie, or Anne, or Elisabeth, she had forgotten which, and probably Charles after the dethroned monarch.

Almost every day now mysterious cases and parcels arrived, addressed to her and bearing an English postmark; a bath, painted on the outside with a design of blue loops and knots, had recently found its way into the Hotel. In a fortnight an English nurse was expected, chosen by Aunt Julia, and she would have plenty of time to become accustomed to the ways of the house before her services would be needed. The married ladies of the family made their own comments when they heard that all the babyclothes which Horatia had not made herself had been sent direct from England, and there was much hostile criticism on the proposed addition of an English nurse to the household. However, Armand had let it be known that his wife should not be thwarted, and as she did not trouble him about arrangements he was only too glad for her to amuse herself in such a harmless fashion. The nurseries had been decorated by a well-known Paris firm, and Horatia was pleased with the cream panelling of the walls, and the cream curtains with their sprays of pink roses caught up with pale blue ribbons, and lined with deep rose pink to give a warm glow to the room.

The day that the painters and decorators left she had a sudden idea. There was in her boudoir a copy in oils of that beautiful Madonna of Raphael's, which Ferdinand III of Tuscany, discovering in a peasant's cottage, so loved that it hung always over his bed. Some privileged person apparently had obtained permission to have it copied; the copy had somehow found its way to a dealer's, and the Duc de la Roche-Guyon, on an Italian tour, had bought it and presented it to his wife, Armand's mother. It had made little appeal to Horatia at first, but of late she had come to love it, congratulating herself on being able to discriminate between the natural beauty of this picture of a mother and her child, and its superstitious associations. Her fancy now was to have the work of art, in its heavy Florentine frame, removed from her sitting-room and hung over the mantelpiece in the day nursery. In these rather unusual surroundings it could reign alone, and later on it would be company for her and Maurice.

The order was executed by rather bewildered servants, who secretly wondered what Madame la Comtesse would command to be done next, and Horatia, in the growing dusk, went to look at the effect. The result was beyond her expectations.

She sat down and gazed for a long time at the simplicity, purity, and calm of the fair face. Suddenly she bent forward, and, hardly knowing what she was doing, held out her arms to it with an indescribable gesture at once of entreaty and of offering, and then as suddenly leant back in her chair, and covering her face with her hands began to cry. She was terribly lonely. But it was not for long now. It was not for long that she would hold out empty arms....

*(4)*

The next day it rained in torrents from an early hour, the persistent rain of autumn. Armand was away, but this was nothing unusual. The post brought her no fresh parcels, and it was too wet to go out driving, and her boudoir without the familiar picture seemed forlorn. Seeking for a diversion she told Martha to light the fire in the nursery.

"Yes, certainly, my lady," responded Mrs. Kemblet, delighted, "and perhaps you would like to count through the things Polly sent over yesterday, and there is the christening robe to be put away."

"Of course, I had forgotten," said Horatia. "We will be very busy, and pretend we are at home in England."