"Yes--no--at least, sometimes--that is, I never of it--oh--I forget!" I
groaned at my idiocy and hid my face in my hands. She asked if I were
still unwell, and I said no; and then she began to talk quite easily
about anything, everything, till I felt more at my ease.
Her voice! I had never heard it well but in a dream, and it was the
same--a very rich and modulated voice--low--contralto, with many varied
and delightful inflexions; and she used more action in speaking than the
generality of Englishwomen, thereby reminding me of Madame Seraskier. I
noticed that her hands were long and very narrow, and also her feet, and
remembered that Mimsey's were like that--they were considered poor
Mimsey's only beauty. I also noticed an almost imperceptible scar on her
left temple, and remembered with a thrill that I had noticed it in my
dream as we walked up the avenue together. In waking life I had never
been near enough to her to notice a small scar, and Mimsey had no scar
of the kind in the old days--of that I felt sure, for I had seen much of
Mimsey lately.
I grew more accustomed to the situation, and ventured to say that I had
once met her at Lady Cray's in London.
"Oh yes; I remember. Giulia Grisi sand the 'Willow Song.'" And then she
crinkled up her eyes, and laughed, and blushed, and went on: "I noticed
you standing in a corner, under the famous Gainsborough. You reminded me
of a dear little French boy I once knew who was very kind to me when I
was a little girl in France, and whose father you happen to be like. But
I found that you were Mr. Ibbetson, an English architect, and, Lady Cray
tells me, a very rising one"
"I _was_ a little French boy once. I had to change my name to please a
relative, and become English--that is, I was always _really_ English,
you know."
"Good Heavens, what an extraordinary thing! What _was_ your name, then?"
"Pasquier-Gogo Pasquier!" I groaned, and the tears came into my eyes,
and I looked away. The duchess made no answer, and when I turned and
looked at her she was looking at me, very pale, her lips quite white,
her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and trembling all over.
I said, "You used to be little Mimsey Seraskier, and I used to carry you
pickaback!"
"Oh don't! oh don't!" she said, and began to cry.
I got up and walked about under the ash-tree till she had dried her
eyes. The croquet-players were intent upon their game.
I again sat down beside her; she had dried her eyes, and at length she
said--
"What a dreadful thing it was about your poor father and mother, and
_my_ dear mother! Do you remember her? She died a week after you left. I
went to Russia with papa--Dr. Seraskier. What a terrible break-up it
all was!"
And then we gradually fell to talking quite naturally about old times,
and dear dead people. She never took her eyes off mine. After a while
I said--
"I went to Passy, and found everything changed and built over. It
nearly drove me mad to see. I went to St. Cloud, and saw you driving
with the Empress of the French. That night I had such an extraordinary
dream! I dreamed I was floundering about the Rue de la Pompe, and had
just got to the avenue gate, and you were there."
"Good heavens!" she whispered, and turned white again, and trembled all
over, "what do you mean?"
"Yes," I said, "you came to my rescue. I was pursued by gnomes and
horrors."
_She._ "Good heavens! by--by two little jailers, a man and his wife, who
danced and were trying to hem you in?"
It was now my turn to ejaculate "Good heavens!" We both shook and
trembled together.
I said: "You gave me your hand, and all came straight at once. My old
school rose in place of the jail."
_She._ "With a yellow omnibus? And boys going off to their _première
communion?_"
_I._ "Yes; and there was a crowd--le Père et la Mère
François, and Madame Liard, the grocer's wife, and--and
Mimsey Seraskier, with her cropped head. And
an organ was playing a tune I knew quite well, but
cannot now recall." ...
_She._ "Wasn't it 'Maman, les p'tits bateaux?'"
_I._ Oh, of _course!_
_"'Maman, les p'tits bateaux
Qui vont sur l'eau,
Ont-ils des jambes?'"_
_She_. "That's it!"
_"'Eh oui, petit bêta!
S'ils n'avaient pas
Ils n'march'raient pas!'"_