IN WHICH THE VICOMTE CONTINUES HIS STUDIES
Mr. Robert Holt, Honora learned at breakfast, had two bobbies. She had
never heard of what is called Forestry, and had always believed the wood
of her country to be inexhaustible. It had never occurred to her to think
of a wild forest as an example of nature's extravagance, and so
flattering was her attention while Robert explained the primary
principles of caring for trees that he actually offered to show her one
of the tracts on the estate which he was treating. He could not,--he
regretted to say, take her that morning.
His other hobby was golf. He was president of the Sutton Golf Club, and
had arranged to play a match with Mr. Spence. This gentleman, it
appeared, was likewise an enthusiast, and had brought to Silverdale a
leather bag filled with sticks.
"Won't you come, too, Miss Leffingwell?" he said, as he took a second cup
of coffee.
Somewhat to the astonishment of the Holt family, Robert seconded the
invitation.
"I'll bet, Robert," said Mr. Spence, gallantly, "that Miss Leffingwell
can put it over both of us."
"Indeed, I can't play at all," exclaimed Honora in confusion. "And I
shouldn't think of spoiling your match. And besides, I am going to drive
with Susan."
"We can go another day, Honora," said Susan.
But Honora would not hear of it.
"Come over with me this afternoon, then," suggested Mr. Spence, "and I'll
give you a lesson."
She thanked him gratefully.
"But it won't be much fun for you, I'm afraid," she added, as they left
the dining room.
"Don't worry about me," he answered cheerfully. He was dressed in a
checked golf costume, and wore a pink shirt of a new pattern. And he
stood in front of her in the hall, glowing from his night's sleep,
evidently in a high state of amusement.
"What's the matter?" she demanded.
"You did for the Vicomte all right," he said. "I'd give a good deal to
see him going through the Institution."
"It wouldn't have hurt you, either," she retorted, and started up the
stairs. Once she glanced back and saw him looking after her.
At the far end of the second story hall she perceived the Vicomte, who
had not appeared at breakfast, coming out of his room. She paused with
her hand on the walnut post and laughed a little, so ludicrous was his
expression as he approached her.
"Ah, Mademoiselle, que vous etes mechante!" he exclaimed. "But I forgive
you, if you will not go off with that stock-broker. It must be that I see
the Home sometime, and if I go now it is over. I forgive you. It is in
the Bible that we must forgive our neighbour--how many times?"
"Seventy times seven," said Honora.
"But I make a condition," said the Vicomte, "that my neighbour shall be a
woman, and young and beautiful. Then I care not how many times.
Mademoiselle, if you would but have your portrait painted as you are,
with your hand on the post, by Sargent or Carolus Duran, there would be
some noise in the Salon."
"Is that you, Vicomte?" came a voice from the foot of the stairs--Mrs.
Holt's voice.
"I come this instant, Madame," he replied, looking over the banisters,
and added: "malheureux que je suis! Perhaps, when I return, you will show
me a little of the garden."
The duty of exhibiting to guests the sights of Silverdale and the
neighbourhood had so often devolved upon Susan, who was methodical, that
she had made out a route, or itinerary, for this purpose. There were some
notes to leave and a sick woman and a child to see, which caused her to
vary it a little that morning; and Honora, who sat in the sunlight and
held the horse, wondered how it would feel to play the lady bountiful. "I
am so glad to have you all to myself for a little while, Honora," Susan
said to her. "You are so popular that I begin to fear that I shall have
to be unselfish, and share you."
"Oh, Susan," she said, "every one has been so kind. And I can't tell you
how much I am enjoying this experience, which I feel I owe to you."
"I am so happy, dear, that it is giving you pleasure," said Susan.
"And don't think," exclaimed Honora, "that you won't see lots of me, for
you will."
Her heart warmed to Susan, yet she could not but feel a secret pity for
her, as one unable to make the most of her opportunities in the wonderful
neighbourhood in which she lived. As they drove through the roads and in
and out of the well-kept places, everybody they met had a bow and a smile
for her friend--a greeting such as people give to those for whom they
have only good-will. Young men and girls waved their racquets at her from
the tennis-courts; and Honora envied them and wished that she, too, were
a part of the gay life she saw, and were playing instead of being driven
decorously about. She admired the trim, new houses in which they lived,
set upon the slopes of the hills. Pleasure houses, they seemed to her,
built expressly for joys which had been denied her.
"Do you see much of--of these people, Susan?" she asked.
"Not so much as I'd like," replied Susan, seriously. "I never seem to get
time. We nearly always have guests at Silverdale, and then there are so
many things one has to attend to. Perhaps you have noticed," she added,
smiling a little, "that we are very serious and old-fashioned."
"Oh, no indeed," protested Honora. "It is such a wonderful experience for
me to be here!"
"Well," said Susan, "we're having some young people to dinner to-night,
and others next week--that's why I'm leaving these notes. And then we
shall be a little livelier."
"Really, Susan, you mustn't think that I'm not having a good time. It is
exciting to be in the same house with a real French Vicomte, and I like
Mr. Spence tremendously."
Her friend was silent.
"Don't you?" demanded Honora.
To her surprise, the usually tolerant Susan did not wholly approve of Mr.
Spence.
"He is a guest, and I ought not to criticise him," she answered. "But
since you ask me, Honora, I have to be honest. It seems to me that his
ambitions are a little sordid--that he is too intent upon growing rich."
"But I thought all New Yorkers were that way," exclaimed Honora, and
added hastily, "except a few, like your family, Susan."
Susan laughed.
"You should marry a diplomat, my dear," she said. "After all, perhaps I
am a little harsh. But there is a spirit of selfishness and--and of
vulgarity in modern, fashionable New York which appears to be catching,
like a disease. The worship of financial success seems to be in every
one's blood."
"It is power," said Honora.
Susan glanced at her, but Honora did not remark the expression on her
friend's face, so intent was she on the reflections which Susan's words
had aroused. They had reached the far end of the Silverdale domain, and
were driving along the shore of the lake that lay like a sapphire set
amongst the green hills. It was here that the new house of the Robert
Holts was building. Presently they came to Joshua's dairy farm, and
Joshua himself was standing in the doorway of one of his immaculate barn
Honora put her hand on Susan's arm.
"Can't we see the cows?" she asked.
Susan looked surprised.
"I didn't know you were interested in cows, Honora."
"I am interested in everything," said Honora: "and I think your brother
is so attractive."
It was at this moment that Joshua, with his hands in his pockets,
demanded what his sister was doing there.
"Miss Leffingwell wants to look at the cattle, Josh," called Susan.
"Won't you show them to me, Mr. Holt," begged Honora. "I'd like so much
to see some really good cattle, and to know a little more about them."
Joshua appeared incredulous. But, being of the male sex, he did not hide
the fact that he was pleased, "it seems strange to have somebody really
want to see them," he said. "I tried to get Spence to come back this way,
but the idea didn't seem to appeal to him. Here are some of the records."
"Records?" repeated Honora, looking at a mass of typewritten figures on
the wall. "Do you mean to say you keep such an exact account of all the
milk you get?"
Joshua laughed, and explained. She walked by his side over the concrete
paving to the first of the varnished stalls.
"That," he said, and a certain pride had come into his voice, "is Lady
Guinevere, and those ribbons are the prizes she has taken on both sides
of the water."
"Isn't she a dear!" exclaimed Honora; "why, she's actually beautiful. I
didn't know cows could be so beautiful."
"She isn't bad," admitted Joshua. "Of course the good points in a cow
aren't necessarily features of beauty for instance, these bones here," he
added, pointing to the hips.
"But they seem to add, somehow, to the thoroughbred appearance," Honora
declared.
"That's absolutely true," replied Joshua,--whereupon he began to talk.
And Honora, still asking questions, followed him from stall to stall.
"There are some more in the pasture," he said, when they had reached the
end of the second building.
"Oh, couldn't I see them?" she asked.
"Surely," replied Joshua, with more of alacrity than one would have
believed him capable. "I'll tell Susan to drive on, and you and I will
walk home across the fields, if you like."
"I should love to," said Honora.
It was not without astonishment that the rest of the Holt family beheld
them returning together as the gongs were sounding for luncheon. Mrs.
Holt, upon perceiving them, began at once to shake her head and laugh.
"My dear, it can't be that you have captivated Joshua!" she exclaimed, in
a tone that implied the carrying of a stronghold hitherto thought
impregnable.
Honora blushed, whether from victory or embarrassment, or both, it is
impossible to say.
"I'm afraid it's just the other way, Mrs. Holt," she replied; "Mr. Holt
has captivated me."
"We'll call it mutual, Miss Leffingwell," declared Joshua, which was for
him the height of gallantry.
"I only hope he hasn't bored you," said the good-natured Mrs. Joshua.
"Oh, dear, no," exclaimed Honora. "I don't see bow any one could be bored
looking at such magnificent animals as that Hardicanute."
It was at this moment that her eyes were drawn, by a seemingly resistless
attraction, to Mrs. Robert's face. Her comment upon this latest conquest,
though unexpressed, was disquieting. And in spite of herself, Honora
blushed again.
At luncheon, in the midst of a general conversation, Mr. Spence made a
remark sotto voce which should, in the ordinary course of events, have
remained a secret.
"Susan," he said, "your friend Miss Leffingwell is a fascinator. She's
got Robert's scalp, too, and he thought it a pretty good joke because I
offered to teach her to play golf this afternoon."
It appeared that Susan's eyes could flash indignantly. Perhaps she
resented Mr. Spence's calling her by her first name.
"Honora Leffingwell is the most natural and unspoiled person I know," she
said.
There is, undoubtedly, a keen pleasure and an ample reward in teaching a
pupil as apt and as eager to learn as Honora. And Mr. Spence, if he
attempted at all to account for the swiftness with which the hours of
that long afternoon slipped away, may have attributed their flight to the
discovery in himself of hitherto latent talent for instruction. At the
little Casino, he had bought, from the professional in charge of the
course, a lady's driver; and she practised with exemplary patience the
art of carrying one's hands through and of using the wrists in the
stroke.
"Not quite, Miss Leffingwell," he would say, "but so."
Honora would try again.
"That's unusually good for a beginner, but you are inclined to chop it
off a little still. Let it swing all the way round."
"Oh, dear, how you must hate me!"
"Hate you?" said Mr. Spence, searching in vain for words with which to
obliterate such a false impression. "Anything but that!"
"Isn't it a wonderful, spot?" she exclaimed, gazing off down the swale,
emerald green in the afternoon light between its forest walls. In the
distance, Silver Brook was gleaming amidst the meadows. They sat down on
one of the benches and watched the groups of players pass. Mr. Spence
produced his cigarette case, and presented it to her playfully.
"A little quiet whiff," he suggested. "There's not much chance over at
the convent," and she gathered that it was thus he was pleased to
designate Silverdale.
In one instant she was doubtful whether or not to be angry, and in the
next grew ashamed of the provincialism which had caused her to suspect an
insult. She took a cigarette, and he produced a gold match case, lighted
a match, and held it up for her. Honora blew it out.
"You didn't think seriously that I smoked?" she asked, glancing at him.
"Why not?" he asked; "any number of girls do."
She tore away some of the rice paper and lifted the tobacco to her nose,
and made a little grimace.
"Do you like to see women smoke?" she asked.
Mr. Spence admitted that there was something cosey about the custom, when
it was well done.
"And I imagine," he added, "that you'd do it well."
"I'm sure I should make a frightful mess of it," she protested modestly.
"You do everything well," he said.
"Even golf?" she inquired mischievously.
"Even golf, for a beginner and--and a woman; you've got the swing in an
astonishingly short time. In fact, you've been something of an eye-opener
to me," he declared. "If I had been betting, I should have placed the
odds about twenty to one against your coming from the West."
This Eastern complacency, although it did not lower Mr. Spence in her
estimation, aroused Honora's pride.
"That shows how little New Yorkers know of the West," she replied,
laughing. "Didn't you suppose there were any gentlewomen there?"
"Gentlewomen," repeated Mr. Spence, as though puzzled by the word,
"gentlewomen, yes. But you might have been born anywhere."
Even her sense of loyalty to her native place was not strong enough to
override this compliment.
"I like a girl with some dash and go to her," he proclaimed, and there
could be no doubt about the one to whom he was attributing these
qualities. "Savoir faire, as the French call it, and all that. I don't
know much about that language, but the way you talk it makes Mrs. Holt's
French and Susan's sound silly. I watched you last night when you were
stringing the Vicomte."
"Oh, did you?" said Honora, demurely.
"You may have thought I was talking to Mrs. Robert," he said.
"I wasn't thinking anything about you," replied Honora, indignantly. "And
besides, I wasn't I stringing' the Vicomte. In the West we don't use
anything like so much slang as you seem to use in New York."
"Oh, come now!" he exclaimed, laughingly, and apparently not the least
out of countenance, "you made him think he was the only pebble on the
beach. I have no idea what you were talking about."
"Literature," she said. "Perhaps that was the reason why you couldn't
understand it."
"He may be interested in literature," replied Mr. Spence, "but it
wouldn't be a bad guess to say that he was more interested in stocks and
bonds."
"He doesn't talk about them, at any rate," said Honora.
"I'd respect him more if he did," he announced. "I know those
fellows-they make love to every woman they meet. I saw him eying you at
lunch."
Honora laughed.
"I imagine the Vicomte could make love charmingly," she said.
Mr. Spence suddenly became very solemn.
"Merely as a fellow-countryman, Miss Leffingwell--" he began, when she
sprang to her feet, her eyes dancing, and finished the sentence.
"You would advise me to be on my guard against him, because, although I
look twenty-five and experienced, I am only nineteen and inexperienced.
Thank you."
He paused to light another cigarette before he followed her across the
turf. But she had the incomprehensible feminine satisfaction of knowing,
as they walked homeward, that the usual serenity of his disposition was
slightly ruffled.
A sudden caprice impelled her, in the privacy of her bedroom that
evening, to draw his portrait for Peter Erwin. The complacency of New
York men was most amusing, she wrote, and the amount of slang they used
would have been deemed vulgar in St. Louis. Nevertheless, she liked
people to be sure of themselves, and there was something "insolent" about
New York which appealed to her. Peter, when he read that letter, seemed
to see Mr. Howard Spence in the flesh; or arrayed, rather, in the kind of
cloth alluringly draped in the show-windows of fashionable tailors. For
Honora, all unconsciously, wrote literature. Literature was invented
before phonographs, and will endure after them. Peter could hear Mr.
Spence talk, for a part of that gentleman's conversation--a
characteristic part--was faithfully transcribed. And Peter detected a
strain of admiration running even through the ridicule.
Peter showed that letter to Aunt Mary, whom it troubled, and to Uncle
Tom, who laughed over it. There was also a lifelike portrait of the
Vicomte, followed by the comment that he was charming, but very French;
but the meaning of this last, but quite obvious, attribute remained
obscure. He was possessed of one of the oldest titles and one of the
oldest chateaux in France. (Although she did not say so, Honora had this
on no less authority than that of the Vicomte himself.) Mrs. Holt--with
her Victorian brooch and ear-rings and her watchful delft-blue eyes that
somehow haunted one even when she was out of sight, with her ample bosom
and the really kind heart it contained--was likewise depicted; and Mr.
Holt, with his dried bread, and his garden which Honora wished Uncle Tom
could see, and his prayers that lacked imagination. Joshua and his cows,
Robert and his forest, Susan and her charities, the Institution, jolly
Mrs. Joshua and enigmatical Mrs. Robert--all were there: and even a
picture of the dinner-party that evening, when Honora sat next to a young
Mr. Patterson with glasses and a studious manner, who knew George Hanbury
at Harvard. The other guests were a florid Miss Chamberlin, whose person
loudly proclaimed possessions, and a thin Miss Longman, who rented one of
the Silverdale cottages and sketched.
Honora was seeing life. She sent her love to Peter, and begged him to
write to her.
The next morning a mysterious change seemed to have passed over the
members of the family during the night. It was Sunday. Honora, when she
left her room, heard a swishing on the stairs--Mrs. Joshua, stiffly
arrayed for the day. Even Mrs. Robert swished, but Mrs. Holt, in a
bronze-coloured silk, swished most of all as she entered the library
after a brief errand to the housekeeper's room. Mr. Holt was already
arranging his book-marks in the Bible, while Joshua and Robert, in black
cutaways that seemed to have the benumbing and paralyzing effect of
strait-jackets, wandered aimlessly about the room, as though its walls
were the limit of their movements. The children had a subdued and
touch-me-not air that reminded Honora of her own youth.
It was not until prayers were over and the solemn gathering seated at the
breakfast table that Mr. Spence burst upon it like an aurora. His flannel
suit was of the lightest of grays; he wore white tennis shoes and a red
tie, and it was plain, as he cheerfully bade them good morning, that he
was wholly unaware of the enormity of his costume. There was a choking,
breathless moment before Mrs. Holt broke the silence.
"Surely, Howard," she said, "you're not going to church in those
clothes."
"I hadn't thought of going to church," replied Mr. Spence, helping
himself to cherries.
"What do you intend to do?" asked his hostess.
"Read the stock reports for the week as soon as the newspapers arrive."
"There is no such thing as a Sunday newspaper in my house," said Mrs.
Holt.
"No Sunday newspapers!" he exclaimed. And his eyes, as they encountered
Honora's,--who sought to avoid them,--expressed a genuine dismay.
"I am afraid," said Mrs. Holt, "that I was right when I spoke of the
pernicious effect of Wall Street upon young men. Your mother did not
approve of Sunday newspapers."
During the rest of the meal, although he made a valiant attempt to hold
his own, Mr. Spence was, so to speak, outlawed. Robert and Joshua must
have had a secret sympathy for him. One of them mentioned the Vicomte.
"The Vicomte is a foreigner," declared Mrs. Holt. "I am in no sense
responsible for him."
The Vicomte was at that moment propped up in bed, complaining to his
valet about the weakness of the coffee. He made the remark (which he
afterwards repeated to Honora) that weak coffee and the Protestant
religion seemed inseparable; but he did not attempt to discover the
whereabouts, in Sutton, of the Church of his fathers. He was not in the
best of humours that morning, and his toilet had advanced no further
when, an hour or so later, he perceived from behind his lace curtains Mr.
Howard Spence, dressed with comparative soberness, handing Honora into
the omnibus. The incident did not serve to improve the cynical mood in
which the Vicomte found himself.
Indeed, the Vicomte, who had a theory concerning Mr. Spence's
church-going, was not far from wrong. As may have been suspected, it was
to Honora that credit was due. It was Honora whom Mr. Spence sought after
breakfast, and to whom he declared that her presence alone prevented him
from leaving that afternoon. It was Honora who told him that he ought to
be ashamed of himself. And it was to Honora, after church was over and
they were walking homeward together along the dusty road, that Mr. Spence
remarked by way of a delicate compliment that "the morning had not been a
total loss, after all!"
The little Presbyterian church stood on a hillside just outside of the
village and was, as far as possible, the possession of the Holt family.
The morning sunshine illuminated the angels in the Holt memorial window,
and the inmates of the Holt Institution occupied all the back pews. Mrs.
Joshua played the organ, and Susan, with several young women and a young
man with a long coat and plastered hair, sang in the choir. The sermon of
the elderly minister had to do with beliefs rather than deeds, and was
the subject of discussion at luncheon.
"It is very like a sermon I found in my room," said Honora.
"I left that book in your room, my dear, in the hope that you would not
overlook it," said Mrs. Holt, approvingly. "Joshua, I wish you would read
that sermon aloud to us."
"Oh, do, Mr. Holt!" begged Honora.
The Vicomte, who had been acting very strangely during the meal, showed
unmistakable signs of a futile anger. He had asked Honora to walk with
him.
"Of course," added Mrs. Holt, "no one need listen who doesn't wish to.
Since you were good enough to reconsider your decision and attend divine
service, Howard, I suppose I should be satisfied."
The reading took place in the library. Through the open window Honora
perceived the form of Joshua asleep in the hammock, his Sunday coat all
twisted under him. It worried her to picture his attire when he should
wake up. Once Mrs. Robert looked in, smiled, said nothing, and went out
again. At length, in a wicker chair under a distant tree on the lawn,
Honora beheld the dejected outline of the Vicomte. He was trying to read,
but every once in a while would lay down his book and gaze protractedly
at the house, stroking his mustache. The low song of the bees around the
shrubbery vied with Mr. Holt's slow reading. On the whole, the situation
delighted Honora, who bit her lip to refrain from smiling at M. de
Toqueville. When at last she emerged from the library, he rose
precipitately and came towards her across the lawn, lifting his hands
towards the pitiless puritan skies.
"Enfin!" he exclaimed tragically. "Ah, Mademoiselle, never in my life
have I passed such a day!"
"Are you ill, Vicomte?" she asked.
"Ill! Were it not for you, I would be gone. You alone sustain me--it is
for the pleasure of seeing you that I suffer. What kind of a menage is
this, then, where I am walked around Institutions, where I am forced to
listen to the exposition of doctrines, where the coffee is weak, where
Sunday, which the bon Dieu set aside for a jour de fete resembles to a
day in purgatory?"
"But, Vicomte," Honora laughed, "you must remember that you are in
America, and that you have come here to study our manners and customs."
"Ah, no," he cried, "ah, no, it cannot all be like this! I will not
believe it. Mr. Holt, who sought to entertain me before luncheon, offered
to show me his collection of Chinese carvings! I, who might be at
Trouville or Cabourg! If it were not for you, Mademoiselle, I should not
stay here--not one little minute," he said, with a slow intensity.
"Behold what I suffer for your sake!"
"For my sake?" echoed Honora.
"For what else?" demanded the Vicomte, gazing upon her with the eyes of
martyrdom. "It is not for my health, alas! Between the coffee and this
dimanche I have the vertigo."
Honora laughed again at the memory of the dizzy Sunday afternoons of her
childhood, when she had been taken to see Mr. Isham's curios.
"You are cruel," said the Vicomte; "you laugh at my tortures."
"On the contrary, I think I understand them," she replied. "I have often
felt the same way."
"My instinct was true, then," he cried triumphantly; "the first time my
eyes fell on you, I said to myself, 'ah! there is one who understands.'
And I am seldom mistaken."
"Your experience with the opposite sex," ventured Honora, "must have made
you infallible."
He shrugged and smiled, as one whose modesty forbade the mention of
conquests.
"You do not belong here either, Mademoiselle," he said. "You are not like
these people. You have temperament, and a future--believe me. Why do you
waste your time?"
"What do you mean, Vicomte?"
"Ah, it is not necessary to explain what I mean. It is that you do not
choose to understand--you are far too clever. Why is it, then, that you
bore yourself by regarding Institutions and listening to sermons in your
jeunesse? It is all very well for Mademoiselle Susan, but you are not
created for a religieuse. And again, it pleases you to spend hours with
the stockbroker, who is as lacking in esprit as the bull of Joshua. He is
no companion for you."
"I am afraid," she said reprovingly, "that you do not understand Mr.
Spence."
"Par exemple!" cried the Vicomte; "have I not seen hundreds' like him? Do
not they come to Paris and live in the great hotels and demand cocktails
and read the stock reports and send cablegrams all the day long? and go
to the Folies Bergeres, and yawn? Nom de nom, of what does his
conversation consist? Of the price of railroads;--is it not so? I, who
speak to you, have talked to him. Does he know how to make love?"
"That accomplishment is not thought of very highly in America," Honora
replied.
"It is because you are a new country," he declared.
"And you are mad over money. Money has taken the place of love."
"Is money so despised in France?" she asked. "I have heard--that you
married for it!"
"Touch!" cried the Vicomte, laughing. "You see, I am frank with you. We
marry for money, yes, but we do not make a god of it. It is our servant.
You make it, and we enjoy it. Yes, and you, Mademoiselle--you, too, were
made to enjoy. You do not belong here," he said, with a disdainful sweep
of the arm. "Ah, I have solved you. You have in you the germ of the
Riviera. You were born there."
Honora wondered if what he said were true. Was she different? She was
having a great deal of pleasure at Silverdale; even the sermon reading,
which would have bored her at home, had interested and amused her. But
was it not from the novelty of these episodes, rather than from their
special characters, that she received the stimulus? She glanced curiously
towards the Vicomte, and met his eye.
They had been walking the while, and had crossed the lawn and entered one
of the many paths which it had been Robert's pastime to cut through the
woods. And at length they came out at a rustic summer-house set over the
wooded valley. Honora, with one foot on the ground, sat on the railing
gazing over the tree-tops; the Vicomte was on the bench beside her. His
eyes sparkled and snapped, and suddenly she tingled with a sense that the
situation was not without an element of danger.
"I had a feeling about you, last night at dinner," he said; "you reminded
me of a line of Marcel Prevost, 'Cette femme ne sera pas aimee que parmi
des drames.'"
"Nonsense," said Honora; "last night at dinner you were too much occupied
with Miss Chamberlin to think of me."
"Ah, Mademoiselle, you have read me strangely if you think that. I talked
to her with my lips, yes--but it was of you I was thinking. I was
thinking that you were born to play a part in many dramas, that you have
the fatal beauty which is rare in all ages." The Vicomte bent towards
her, and his voice became caressing. "You cannot realize how beautiful
you are," he sighed.
Suddenly he seized her hand, and before she could withdraw it she had the
satisfaction of knowing the sensation of having it kissed. It was a
strange sensation indeed. And the fact that she did not tingle with anger
alone made her all the more angry. Trembling, her face burning, she
leaped down from the railing and fled into the path. And there, seeing
that he did not follow, she turned and faced him. He stood staring at her
with eyes that had not ceased to sparkle.
"How cowardly of you!" she cried.
"Ah, Mademoiselle," he answered fervently, "I would risk your anger a
thousand times to see you like that once more. I cannot help my
feelings--they were dead indeed if they did not respond to such an
inspiration. Let them plead for my pardon."
Honora felt herself melting a little. After all, there might have been
some excuse for it, and he made love divinely. When he had caught up with
her, his contriteness was such that she was willing to believe he had not
meant to insult her. And then, he was a Frenchman. As a proof of his
versatility, if not of his good faith, he talked of neutral matters on
the way back to the house, with the charming ease and lightness that was
the gift of his race and class. On the borders of the wood they
encountered the Robert Holts, walking with their children.
"Madame," said the Vicomte to Gwendolen, "your Silverdale is enchanting.
We have been to that little summer-house which commands the valley."
"And are you still learning things about our country, Vicomte?" she
asked, with a glance at Honora.