(3)"'The Tenth Muse'?" asked Horatia. "Who is she?"The opulent but sentimental-looking lady in purple who sat next her in Madame de Chastenay's drawing-room lifted up her hands. "Is it conceivable that you have never heard of Mademoiselle Delphine Gay?" she exclaimed. "But I forgot that you were English. Mademoiselle Gay is the literary prodigy of our sex; figure to yourself a young girl already celebrated at eighteen for her verse, pensioned by His Majesty, and crowned at twenty-three in the Capitol, by the Academy of the Tiber!""And she is going to read us some of her poems now?""To recite them. She has a divine voice and manner."Horatia looked round the room wherein, on this March evening, were seated many ladies and a few men, awaiting the intellectual treat in the midst of a light reflected with dazzling effect from the chandeliers, lustres and chimney-ornaments of cut steel, with which the apartment had lately been beautified. A little way off Armand was bending over the chair of a lady whom she did not know; he was evidently laughing. More than a week had passed since Horatia's passage of arms with the Duchesse. For two days she had refused to go and see her, then, through the agency of old Mademoiselle de la Roche-Guyon—a trembling mediator—a truce was patched up between the combatants. But if the affair appeared to have passed from the Dowager's mind it had not so quitted Horatia's. She did not say a word about it to Armand. Once or twice she was tempted to think the whole thing nonsense, the creation of a malicious brain, and certainly this evening it tended so to appear to her, for here was her husband with her at this salon, and a literary salon too. It was the first of this class that Horatia had attended, and devoutly did she hope that it might be the entry, at last, into that heaven where Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand, Alfred de Vigny, and so many constellations swam in glory.She was recalled from her musings by a stir. Two ladies entered the room—the elder with an indescribable brio. Madame Gay had been a celebrity of the Empire, and kept about her an extraordinary aroma of those great days, a suggestion of staff-officers, mamelukes, the flash of sabres in the sun and the dust cloud over wheeling squadrons, seeming indeed as if she might at any moment break into "Partant pour la Syrie" or some hymn to Glory and Victory. Mademoiselle Delphine gained by the contrast with her parent. Tall, well-built, with a fine head beautifully set on an equally fine neck, clad in a simple white semi-classical dress wearing no ornaments, and with her abundant fair hair hanging in ringlets, she had something of the air of a sibyl. She looked about twenty-five, but was in reality a little older.Madame Gay settled herself, and the Tenth Muse was led to a chair apart—an honourable chair, whose horse-hair seat was painted with roses and camellias. She composed herself in a suitable attitude, brought her beautiful bare arms to one side, clasped her hands loosely together, and, looking up at the ceiling, began to recite in a grave, deep, almost languorous voice, her poem on the last days of Pompeii, commemorating the fate of Théora the priestess of Apollo, and the young warrior Paulus, and recounting how, two thousand years after,"On trouva dans l'enceinte où le temple s'élèveSur l'autel une lyre ... et près du seuil un glaive.""Is it not touching!" said the purple lady to Horatia. The green plumes in her headdress quivered, and she dabbed her eyes rather ostentatiously. "Ces pauvres gens.... Ah, she is beginning again!"This time it was a Hymn to Ste Généviève."Patronne de France, amour de nos aieux ..."At the conclusion of this poem, amid the hum of applause, Madame Gay was observed to approach her offspring, and to whisper something into her ear. The poetess shook her head; then, seeming to relent, and smiling, she announced"Le bonheur d'être belle. Dedicated to MadameRécamier.""Quel bonheur d'être belle, alors qu'on est aimée!Autrefois de mes yeux je n'étais pas charmée;Je les croyais sans feu, sans douceur, sans regard;Je me trouvais jolie un moment par hasard.Maintenant ma beauté me parait admirable.Je m'aime de lui plaire, et je me crois aimable....Il le dit si souvent! Je l'aime, et quand je voisSes yeux avec plaisir se reposer sur moi,Au sentiment d'orgueil je ne suis point rebelle,Je bénis mes parents de m'avoir fait si belle.Mais ... pourquoi dans mon coeur ces subites alarmes?—Si notre amour tous deux nous trompait sur mes charmes:Si j'étais laide enfin? Non ... il s'y connaît mieux!D'ailleurs pour m'admirer je ne veux que ses yeux!—Bientôt il va venir! bientôt il va me voir!Comme, en me regardant, il sera beau ce soir!Le voilà! je l'entends, c'est sa voix amoureuse!Quel bonheur d'être belle! Oh, que je suis heureuse!"The extraordinary appropriateness of these verses to Horatia's own attitude of mind during the past months made her forget to join in the applause which followed their recitation. Yes, it had been exactly her own case; she knew it, and Armand knew it too. He would tease her about them going home. She looked round, with a little half-shy smile, for her husband, but he was nowhere to be seen, and she remembered that since Mademoiselle Gay's entrance she had been too much occupied to notice his whereabouts.And then came his voice in her ear, sudden and by no means "amoureuse.""For God's sake let us go!"Horatia turned round, startled. "Certainly, if you wish it," she responded, and, the recitation having apparently come to an end, she was able to take her leave almost at once. Her first thought had been that Armand was ill."You were bored, I am afraid?" she hazarded, as the carriage started."Mon Dieu!" answered her husband, throwing himself back in the corner, "could one be otherwise? It was intolerable—to listen to all that stuff about Pompeii and Ste. Généviève. Madame de Chastenay is preposterous with her female phenomena. Don't ever ask me to go there again!"And, had it not been Armand who spoke, Horatia would have thought the voice thoroughly bad-tempered."But, my dear Armand," she protested, putting a hand on his arm, "I would willingly have come away sooner if I had known. I thought you were admiring the poetess; she is very pretty—no, she is beautiful.""Entendu. It is a woman's business to be beautiful, but not to declaim wearisome verses. Don't ask me to go to any more of these functions with you!"Horatia turned a little pale and drew back. Could it be true after all, that incredible thing which the Duchess had said, that she would make him ridiculous—that he himself thought it, feared it?Armand could not but perceive her shrink, and the lover conquered the sulky male. He caught her hand."My darling, forgive me! I didn't mean to hurt you. You know that there is no greater pleasure for me than to be with you, but ... Iwasso bored!"Impossible to resist the half-humorous, half-pleading tone, and the look in his eyes. As the carriage rolled under their own gateway she bent forward and put a light kiss on his temple."I forgive you," she said."Mademoiselle Gay did not then give you the canto of her poem on the Magdalene where the devil, to tempt the saint, takes on the form of Joseph of Arimathea?" inquired the Duchesse that evening. "That must, ma foi, be very striking, and I regret that I have never even read it."CHAPTER VI(1)"O temps, suspends ton vol, et vous, heures propices,Suspendez votre cours!Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délicesDes plus beaux de nos jours!"—sang M. Alphonse de Lamartine to the Comtesse Armand de la Roche-Guyon from the beautifully bound copy of Les Meditations which, with his just-published Harmonies, Horatia had found in her room. A line from Emmanuel had asked her to please him by accepting them. And, having turned over the new poems, she had reverted to that earlier and famous elegy over past happiness, Le Lac, and its passion and melancholy had sent her into a half reverie.How kind, how thoughtful, Emmanuel was! This gift could be but the outcome of his knowledge of her desire for personal acquaintance with the poet. He could not give her that, and Armand would not."My dear child," the latter had said, "it is quite out of the question. If you want to see M. Victor Hugo, Dumas, de Vigny, and this young de Musset, you must go to the sort of club they have at Charles Nodier's, the Cénacle I think they call it—and, of course, you cannot do that. Comte Alfred de Vigny does belong to our world, it is true, but he hardly goes anywhere. But as for these Gautiers and Balzacs, where do you expect to find them? In some dingy lodgings in the Quarter, not anywhere that you are likely to visit!""But a great many ladies of your world, as you call them, have literary salons, surely," pleaded Horatia."Like the one the other day? No, not many are left now, and what there are are mostly Orleanist.""What about Madame Récamier?" suggested Horatia. "Would not the presence of Monsieur de Chateaubriand be a guarantee of right principles?"Armand laughed. "I cannot deny that. Now that there is no monarch the great Renæ is more of a monarchist than ever. Very well, little tease, I will get you the entrée to the Abbaye-aux-Bois as soon as I can."And with that promise—as yet unfulfilled, Horatia was forced to be content....Her eyes went back to her book."O temps, suspends ton vol——"But the thoughts came bubbling up, displacing the flow of the verses. She did not want the flight of time suspended this afternoon; rather the contrary. Armand was away, and would not be back till to-morrow; the flight of time was a mere crawl."Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices..."But this was no fleet delight, to sit here in her boudoir, full of flowers though it was, with nothing to do, and the rain falling outside. Besides, if she went out, it must be with the Marquise.The last time they had driven out together, Madame de Beaulieu had taken her to see the villa outside Paris which she was furnishing for a summer retreat—the latest craze. This was no ancestral château, and everything in it must be new, and, said the Marquise, marked by extreme simplicity of taste. And in the drawing-room, where the blinds were painted to resemble stained-glass windows, where the chairs, stools and sofas were of bamboo and Persian-figured chintz, the ottomans and floorcloths of split reeds, Madame de Beaulieu described the style of dress which she had designed for herself when inhabiting this seclusion—a plain white jacconet gown, with an apron of dove-coloured gros de Naples, worked round with green foliage, the pockets cut en coeur, the hair to be done smoothly with but one high bow and a comb, and no ornaments whatsoever.It was after this expedition that Horatia had suddenly taken the resolution of unpacking her books. She felt haunted by the dove-coloured apron with green foliage and heart-shaped pockets, and with Martha's assistance she brought the prisoners once more to the light of day. Some had been among her childhood's treasures—Robinson Crusoe,Don Quixote, a few sheets of theArabian Nights,The Scottish Chiefs,Susan Gray—and then there were all the favourites of later years. She welcomed them with an almost guilty pleasure, and there they were now, most of them in a bookcase under the window looking out into the Rue Saint-Dominique, for under the other, which gave on to the courtyard of the Hôtel, stood the Duchesse's New Year's gift to her—a satinwood table inlaid with ebony, encumbered on every side with drawers from which hung workbags of blue satin, stocked with the requirements for a hundred and one useless handicrafts—with velvet to make flowers, and gauze for painting upon. Horatia had just opened these pouched drawers, no more, and at present used the table rather ruthlessly for a sort of jardinière, so that the inlay was slowly deteriorating under pots of camellias and baskets of violets in moss.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 toLes 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 Fénelon. 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. Honoré 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, calledL'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 abbé 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,surelythere 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 Elysées 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 chère. 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 chère," 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 Hôtel 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 Orléans 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 Elysées 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'Opéra. 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, chère 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 fête 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'Opéra 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 Chaussée 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 Elysées."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.
(3)
"'The Tenth Muse'?" asked Horatia. "Who is she?"
The opulent but sentimental-looking lady in purple who sat next her in Madame de Chastenay's drawing-room lifted up her hands. "Is it conceivable that you have never heard of Mademoiselle Delphine Gay?" she exclaimed. "But I forgot that you were English. Mademoiselle Gay is the literary prodigy of our sex; figure to yourself a young girl already celebrated at eighteen for her verse, pensioned by His Majesty, and crowned at twenty-three in the Capitol, by the Academy of the Tiber!"
"And she is going to read us some of her poems now?"
"To recite them. She has a divine voice and manner."
Horatia looked round the room wherein, on this March evening, were seated many ladies and a few men, awaiting the intellectual treat in the midst of a light reflected with dazzling effect from the chandeliers, lustres and chimney-ornaments of cut steel, with which the apartment had lately been beautified. A little way off Armand was bending over the chair of a lady whom she did not know; he was evidently laughing. More than a week had passed since Horatia's passage of arms with the Duchesse. For two days she had refused to go and see her, then, through the agency of old Mademoiselle de la Roche-Guyon—a trembling mediator—a truce was patched up between the combatants. But if the affair appeared to have passed from the Dowager's mind it had not so quitted Horatia's. She did not say a word about it to Armand. Once or twice she was tempted to think the whole thing nonsense, the creation of a malicious brain, and certainly this evening it tended so to appear to her, for here was her husband with her at this salon, and a literary salon too. It was the first of this class that Horatia had attended, and devoutly did she hope that it might be the entry, at last, into that heaven where Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand, Alfred de Vigny, and so many constellations swam in glory.
She was recalled from her musings by a stir. Two ladies entered the room—the elder with an indescribable brio. Madame Gay had been a celebrity of the Empire, and kept about her an extraordinary aroma of those great days, a suggestion of staff-officers, mamelukes, the flash of sabres in the sun and the dust cloud over wheeling squadrons, seeming indeed as if she might at any moment break into "Partant pour la Syrie" or some hymn to Glory and Victory. Mademoiselle Delphine gained by the contrast with her parent. Tall, well-built, with a fine head beautifully set on an equally fine neck, clad in a simple white semi-classical dress wearing no ornaments, and with her abundant fair hair hanging in ringlets, she had something of the air of a sibyl. She looked about twenty-five, but was in reality a little older.
Madame Gay settled herself, and the Tenth Muse was led to a chair apart—an honourable chair, whose horse-hair seat was painted with roses and camellias. She composed herself in a suitable attitude, brought her beautiful bare arms to one side, clasped her hands loosely together, and, looking up at the ceiling, began to recite in a grave, deep, almost languorous voice, her poem on the last days of Pompeii, commemorating the fate of Théora the priestess of Apollo, and the young warrior Paulus, and recounting how, two thousand years after,
"On trouva dans l'enceinte où le temple s'élèveSur l'autel une lyre ... et près du seuil un glaive."
"On trouva dans l'enceinte où le temple s'élèveSur l'autel une lyre ... et près du seuil un glaive."
"On trouva dans l'enceinte où le temple s'élève
Sur l'autel une lyre ... et près du seuil un glaive."
"Is it not touching!" said the purple lady to Horatia. The green plumes in her headdress quivered, and she dabbed her eyes rather ostentatiously. "Ces pauvres gens.... Ah, she is beginning again!"
This time it was a Hymn to Ste Généviève.
"Patronne de France, amour de nos aieux ..."
"Patronne de France, amour de nos aieux ..."
"Patronne de France, amour de nos aieux ..."
At the conclusion of this poem, amid the hum of applause, Madame Gay was observed to approach her offspring, and to whisper something into her ear. The poetess shook her head; then, seeming to relent, and smiling, she announced
"Le bonheur d'être belle. Dedicated to MadameRécamier.""Quel bonheur d'être belle, alors qu'on est aimée!Autrefois de mes yeux je n'étais pas charmée;Je les croyais sans feu, sans douceur, sans regard;Je me trouvais jolie un moment par hasard.Maintenant ma beauté me parait admirable.Je m'aime de lui plaire, et je me crois aimable....Il le dit si souvent! Je l'aime, et quand je voisSes yeux avec plaisir se reposer sur moi,Au sentiment d'orgueil je ne suis point rebelle,Je bénis mes parents de m'avoir fait si belle.Mais ... pourquoi dans mon coeur ces subites alarmes?—Si notre amour tous deux nous trompait sur mes charmes:Si j'étais laide enfin? Non ... il s'y connaît mieux!D'ailleurs pour m'admirer je ne veux que ses yeux!—Bientôt il va venir! bientôt il va me voir!Comme, en me regardant, il sera beau ce soir!Le voilà! je l'entends, c'est sa voix amoureuse!Quel bonheur d'être belle! Oh, que je suis heureuse!"
"Le bonheur d'être belle. Dedicated to MadameRécamier.""Quel bonheur d'être belle, alors qu'on est aimée!Autrefois de mes yeux je n'étais pas charmée;Je les croyais sans feu, sans douceur, sans regard;Je me trouvais jolie un moment par hasard.Maintenant ma beauté me parait admirable.Je m'aime de lui plaire, et je me crois aimable....Il le dit si souvent! Je l'aime, et quand je voisSes yeux avec plaisir se reposer sur moi,Au sentiment d'orgueil je ne suis point rebelle,Je bénis mes parents de m'avoir fait si belle.Mais ... pourquoi dans mon coeur ces subites alarmes?—Si notre amour tous deux nous trompait sur mes charmes:Si j'étais laide enfin? Non ... il s'y connaît mieux!D'ailleurs pour m'admirer je ne veux que ses yeux!—Bientôt il va venir! bientôt il va me voir!Comme, en me regardant, il sera beau ce soir!Le voilà! je l'entends, c'est sa voix amoureuse!Quel bonheur d'être belle! Oh, que je suis heureuse!"
"Le bonheur d'être belle. Dedicated to Madame
Récamier."
"Quel bonheur d'être belle, alors qu'on est aimée!
Autrefois de mes yeux je n'étais pas charmée;
Je les croyais sans feu, sans douceur, sans regard;
Je me trouvais jolie un moment par hasard.
Maintenant ma beauté me parait admirable.
Je m'aime de lui plaire, et je me crois aimable....
Il le dit si souvent! Je l'aime, et quand je vois
Ses yeux avec plaisir se reposer sur moi,
Au sentiment d'orgueil je ne suis point rebelle,
Je bénis mes parents de m'avoir fait si belle.
Mais ... pourquoi dans mon coeur ces subites alarmes?—
Si notre amour tous deux nous trompait sur mes charmes:
Si j'étais laide enfin? Non ... il s'y connaît mieux!
D'ailleurs pour m'admirer je ne veux que ses yeux!—
Bientôt il va venir! bientôt il va me voir!
Comme, en me regardant, il sera beau ce soir!
Le voilà! je l'entends, c'est sa voix amoureuse!
Quel bonheur d'être belle! Oh, que je suis heureuse!"
The extraordinary appropriateness of these verses to Horatia's own attitude of mind during the past months made her forget to join in the applause which followed their recitation. Yes, it had been exactly her own case; she knew it, and Armand knew it too. He would tease her about them going home. She looked round, with a little half-shy smile, for her husband, but he was nowhere to be seen, and she remembered that since Mademoiselle Gay's entrance she had been too much occupied to notice his whereabouts.
And then came his voice in her ear, sudden and by no means "amoureuse."
"For God's sake let us go!"
Horatia turned round, startled. "Certainly, if you wish it," she responded, and, the recitation having apparently come to an end, she was able to take her leave almost at once. Her first thought had been that Armand was ill.
"You were bored, I am afraid?" she hazarded, as the carriage started.
"Mon Dieu!" answered her husband, throwing himself back in the corner, "could one be otherwise? It was intolerable—to listen to all that stuff about Pompeii and Ste. Généviève. Madame de Chastenay is preposterous with her female phenomena. Don't ever ask me to go there again!"
And, had it not been Armand who spoke, Horatia would have thought the voice thoroughly bad-tempered.
"But, my dear Armand," she protested, putting a hand on his arm, "I would willingly have come away sooner if I had known. I thought you were admiring the poetess; she is very pretty—no, she is beautiful."
"Entendu. It is a woman's business to be beautiful, but not to declaim wearisome verses. Don't ask me to go to any more of these functions with you!"
Horatia turned a little pale and drew back. Could it be true after all, that incredible thing which the Duchess had said, that she would make him ridiculous—that he himself thought it, feared it?
Armand could not but perceive her shrink, and the lover conquered the sulky male. He caught her hand.
"My darling, forgive me! I didn't mean to hurt you. You know that there is no greater pleasure for me than to be with you, but ... Iwasso bored!"
Impossible to resist the half-humorous, half-pleading tone, and the look in his eyes. As the carriage rolled under their own gateway she bent forward and put a light kiss on his temple.
"I forgive you," she said.
"Mademoiselle Gay did not then give you the canto of her poem on the Magdalene where the devil, to tempt the saint, takes on the form of Joseph of Arimathea?" inquired the Duchesse that evening. "That must, ma foi, be very striking, and I regret that I have never even read it."
CHAPTER VI
(1)
"O temps, suspends ton vol, et vous, heures propices,Suspendez votre cours!Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délicesDes plus beaux de nos jours!"
"O temps, suspends ton vol, et vous, heures propices,Suspendez votre cours!Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délicesDes plus beaux de nos jours!"
"O temps, suspends ton vol, et vous, heures propices,
Suspendez votre cours!
Suspendez votre cours!
Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices
Des plus beaux de nos jours!"
Des plus beaux de nos jours!"
—sang M. Alphonse de Lamartine to the Comtesse Armand de la Roche-Guyon from the beautifully bound copy of Les Meditations which, with his just-published Harmonies, Horatia had found in her room. A line from Emmanuel had asked her to please him by accepting them. And, having turned over the new poems, she had reverted to that earlier and famous elegy over past happiness, Le Lac, and its passion and melancholy had sent her into a half reverie.
How kind, how thoughtful, Emmanuel was! This gift could be but the outcome of his knowledge of her desire for personal acquaintance with the poet. He could not give her that, and Armand would not.
"My dear child," the latter had said, "it is quite out of the question. If you want to see M. Victor Hugo, Dumas, de Vigny, and this young de Musset, you must go to the sort of club they have at Charles Nodier's, the Cénacle I think they call it—and, of course, you cannot do that. Comte Alfred de Vigny does belong to our world, it is true, but he hardly goes anywhere. But as for these Gautiers and Balzacs, where do you expect to find them? In some dingy lodgings in the Quarter, not anywhere that you are likely to visit!"
"But a great many ladies of your world, as you call them, have literary salons, surely," pleaded Horatia.
"Like the one the other day? No, not many are left now, and what there are are mostly Orleanist."
"What about Madame Récamier?" suggested Horatia. "Would not the presence of Monsieur de Chateaubriand be a guarantee of right principles?"
Armand laughed. "I cannot deny that. Now that there is no monarch the great Renæ is more of a monarchist than ever. Very well, little tease, I will get you the entrée to the Abbaye-aux-Bois as soon as I can."
And with that promise—as yet unfulfilled, Horatia was forced to be content....
Her eyes went back to her book.
"O temps, suspends ton vol——"
"O temps, suspends ton vol——"
"O temps, suspends ton vol——"
But the thoughts came bubbling up, displacing the flow of the verses. She did not want the flight of time suspended this afternoon; rather the contrary. Armand was away, and would not be back till to-morrow; the flight of time was a mere crawl.
"Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices..."
"Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices..."
"Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices..."
But this was no fleet delight, to sit here in her boudoir, full of flowers though it was, with nothing to do, and the rain falling outside. Besides, if she went out, it must be with the Marquise.
The last time they had driven out together, Madame de Beaulieu had taken her to see the villa outside Paris which she was furnishing for a summer retreat—the latest craze. This was no ancestral château, and everything in it must be new, and, said the Marquise, marked by extreme simplicity of taste. And in the drawing-room, where the blinds were painted to resemble stained-glass windows, where the chairs, stools and sofas were of bamboo and Persian-figured chintz, the ottomans and floorcloths of split reeds, Madame de Beaulieu described the style of dress which she had designed for herself when inhabiting this seclusion—a plain white jacconet gown, with an apron of dove-coloured gros de Naples, worked round with green foliage, the pockets cut en coeur, the hair to be done smoothly with but one high bow and a comb, and no ornaments whatsoever.
It was after this expedition that Horatia had suddenly taken the resolution of unpacking her books. She felt haunted by the dove-coloured apron with green foliage and heart-shaped pockets, and with Martha's assistance she brought the prisoners once more to the light of day. Some had been among her childhood's treasures—Robinson Crusoe,Don Quixote, a few sheets of theArabian Nights,The Scottish Chiefs,Susan Gray—and then there were all the favourites of later years. She welcomed them with an almost guilty pleasure, and there they were now, most of them in a bookcase under the window looking out into the Rue Saint-Dominique, for under the other, which gave on to the courtyard of the Hôtel, stood the Duchesse's New Year's gift to her—a satinwood table inlaid with ebony, encumbered on every side with drawers from which hung workbags of blue satin, stocked with the requirements for a hundred and one useless handicrafts—with velvet to make flowers, and gauze for painting upon. Horatia had just opened these pouched drawers, no more, and at present used the table rather ruthlessly for a sort of jardinière, so that the inlay was slowly deteriorating under pots of camellias and baskets of violets in moss.
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 toLes 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 Fénelon. 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. Honoré 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, calledL'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 abbé 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,surelythere 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 Elysées 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 chère. 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 chère," 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 Hôtel 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 Orléans 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 Elysées 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'Opéra. 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, chère 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 fête 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'Opéra 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 Chaussée 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 Elysées."
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.