It was all severely regulated, as by rule, and there was no possibility
of the least alteration: everything was done in accordance with a fixed
law. The reading of the newspaper; her hour and a half to herself;
then lunch. After lunch, the drive, the Jetée, the visits; every
day, those visits and afternoon teas. Once in a way, a dinner-party;
and in the evening generally a dance, a reception or a theatre. She
made new acquaintances by the score and forgot them again at once
and no longer remembered, when she saw them again, whether she knew
them or not. As a rule people were fairly pleasant to her in that
cosmopolitan set, because they knew that she was an intimate friend
of the Princess Urania's. But, like Urania herself, she was sometimes
conscious, from the feminine bearers of the old Italian names and
titles which sometimes glittered in that set, of an overwhelming
pride and contempt. The men always asked to be introduced to her; but,
whenever she asked to be introduced to their ladies, her only reward
was a nod of vague surprise. She herself minded very little, but she
felt sorry for Urania. For she saw at once, at Urania's own parties,
that they hardly looked upon her as the hostess, that they surrounded
and made much of Gilio, but accorded to his wife no more than the
civility which was her due as Princess di Forte-Braccio, without ever
forgetting that she was once Miss Hope. And for Urania this contempt
was more difficult to put up with than for herself. For she accepted
her rôle as the companion. She always kept an eye on Mrs. Uxeley,
constantly joined her for a minute in the course of the evening,
fetched a fan which Mrs. Uxeley had left in the next room or did her
this or that trifling service. Then she would sit down, against the
wall alone in the busily humming drawing-room, and gaze indifferently
before her. She sat, always very smartly dressed, in an attitude of
graceful indifference and weary boredom, tapping her little foot or
unfolding her fan. She took no notice of anybody. Sometimes a couple of
men would come up to her and she spoke to them, or danced with one of
them, indifferently, as though conferring a favour. Once, when Gilio
was talking to her, she sitting and he standing, and the Duchess di
Luca and Countess Costi both came up to him and, standing, began to
chaff him profusely, without honouring her with a word or a glance,
she first stared at the ladies between her mocking lids, eyeing them
from head to foot, and then rose slowly, took Gilio's arm and, with
a glance which darted sharp as a needle from her narrowed eyes, said:
"I beg your pardon, but you must excuse me if I rob you of the Prince
di Forte-Braccio, because I have to finish a private conversation."
And with the pressure of her arm she made Gilio move on a few steps,
then at once sat down again, made him sit down beside her and began to
whisper with him very confidentially, while she left the duchess and
countess standing two yards away, open-mouthed with stupefaction at
her rudeness, and furthermore spread her train wide between herself
and the two ladies and waved her fan to and fro, as though to preserve
a distance. She could do this sort of thing so calmly, so tactfully
and haughtily, that Gilio was tickled to death and sat and giggled
with delight:
"I wish that Urania knew how to behave like that!" he said, pleased
as a child at the diversion which she had afforded him.
"Urania is too nice to do anything so odious," she replied.
She did not make herself liked, but people became afraid of her, afraid
of her quiet malice, and avoided offending her in future. Moreover,
the men thought her pretty and agreeable and were also attracted by her
haughty indifference. And, without really intending it, she achieved a
position, apparently by using the greatest diplomacy, but in reality
quite naturally and easily. While Mrs. Uxeley's egoism was flattered
by her little attentions--always dutifully remembered and paid with a
charming air of maternal solicitude, in contrast to which Mrs. Uxeley
thought it delightful to simper like a young girl--Cornélie gradually
gathered a court of men around her in the evenings; and the women
became insipidly civil. Urania often told her how clever she thought
her, how much tact she displayed. Cornélie shrugged her shoulders:
it all happened of itself; and really she did not care. But still,
gradually, she recovered some of her cheerfulness. When she saw
herself standing in the glass, she had to confess to herself that
she was better-looking than she had ever been, either as a girl or
as a newly-married woman. Her tall, slender figure had a languorous
line of pride that gave her a special grace; her throat was statelier,
her bosom fuller; her waist was slimmer in these new dresses; her hips
had become heavier, her arms more rounded; and, though her features no
longer wore the look of radiant happiness which they had worn in Rome,
her mocking smile and her negligent irony gave her a certain attraction
for those unknown men, something more alluring and provoking than
the greatest coquetry would have been. And Cornélie had not wished
for this; but, now that it came of itself, she accepted it. It was
foreign to her nature to refuse it. And, besides, Mrs. Uxeley was
pleased with her. Cornélie had such a pretty way of whispering to her:
"Dear lady, you were in such pain yesterday. Don't you think you
ought to go home a little earlier to-night?"
And then Mrs. Uxeley would simper like a girl who was being admonished
by her mother not to dance too much that evening. She loved these
little ways of Cornélie's; and Cornélie, with careless indifference,
gave her what she wanted. And those evenings amused her more than they
did at first; only, the amusement was combined with self-reproach
as soon as she thought of Duco, of their separation, of Rome, of
the studio, of the happiness of those past days, which she had lost
through her lack of fortitude.