D. Broster - The Vision Splendid (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

His tone and manner were perfect; grave, respectful, sympathetic, quite without commonplace gallantry. Horatia was amazed at his penetration.

"You are quite right," she said, laying down her work. "It is very ridiculous that my small accomplishments should have the effect of walling me off, as it were, from the rest of the world, but so it is. I am no cleverer than other girls, but, thanks to my kind father, I am better educated. You cannot imagine, M. le Comte, how that fact hampers me in ordinary life. When I stay with my cousins in Northamptonshire they think it a joke to introduce me as a 'bluestocking,' as one who knows Greek. Every man – every young man at least – that I meet is frightened of me, or pretends to be so, which is sillier still; every woman in her heart dislikes me. I suppose they think that I am 'superior.'"

"Ah, the women, I can believe that," said Armand de la Roche-Guyon quickly. "But the men, no, that I can never understand; no Frenchman could understand it."

In a flash Horatia was aware how intimately she had been talking to him. But he went on:

"You should have been born a Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle. In Paris you would occupy your proper place, reigning at once by beauty and by wit, as only our women do."

Horatia coloured. "Do you then notice so much difference in England?" she asked, for the sake of saying something.

The young man cast up his eyes to heaven. "Mademoiselle, by the very disposition of the chairs in an English drawing-room after dinner one can see it! In a row on one side of the room are the ladies; in a row on the other the gentlemen, perhaps looking at them indeed, but more likely talking among themselves of hunting or of politics. Now with us how different! It is to the ladies that the hour of the drawing-room is consecrated; we pay them court, we cannot help it, it is in the blood with us. Besides, have they not great influence on the situation of a man of the world? But with you, suppose now that M. le mari is at his club, eating a dinner that lasts for hours, and that then he goes to the ballet at the Opera, and afterwards perhaps to supper, all this time his unfortunate spouse must shut her doors to visitors, and, for all amusement, may take a cup of tea tête-à-tête with his armchair – vous savez, c'est du barbarisme!"

He was quite excited, and it did not occur to Horatia, amused and rather pleased, to wonder whether his indignation were on behalf of the excluded visitor or the secluded lady.

"You seem to know a great deal about it," she observed, smiling.

But M. de la Roche-Guyon here got up rather suddenly and said that he must be going. Horatia, could she have read his thoughts, might have reassured him, and told him that the sound he had heard was not the Rector opening the drawing-room window, with a view to sallying forth, but the garden gate, which was loose on the latch.

He had raised her hand in the graceful foreign fashion to his lips before she said, "But shall I not see you to-morrow?"

"To-morrow!" said he with enthusiasm. "Do you tell me that you, Mademoiselle, will be at the dinner-party of the Squire to which I am told I am bidden?"

"Yes," said Miss Grenville. "And I shall be interested to observe whether, after dinner, you follow the English fashion or the French."

"After what you have told me, is there need to ask?"

Horatia went into the house singing. Something shining and vital seemed to have brushed against her in passing to-day.

(2)

The impression which Miss Grenville gained of M. de la Roche-Guyon at the Squire's dinner-party next day was that, though separated from her by the length of the table, many épergnes and piles of fruit, and though something monopolised by the ladies on either side of him, he was always looking in her direction if she happened to glance in his. It gave her a curious and entirely novel sensation.

In the drawing-room afterwards all the ladies were loud in his praises. "So charming, and with such courtly manners – so distinguished, and O, so handsome! How interesting, too, that he should be a friend of Mr. Hungerford's – characters so totally unlike, and tastes too, one would imagine. But evidently the Count knows how to be all things to all men!"

Horatia, to whom this last remark was made, stiffened a little on Tristram's behalf. "I think it was very good of Mr. Hungerford to ask him to stay with him," she said, "for he is only an acquaintance. It is really M. de la Roche-Guyon's brother whom Mr. Hungerford knows."

When the gentlemen came in from the dining-room, rather earlier than they were expected, there was a knot of ladies in the centre of the room, of which, however, Horatia was not a part. Into this circle M. de la Roche-Guyon was immediately absorbed, and a buzz of laughter and conversation at once arose.

Tristram came over to Horatia smiling. "It's hopeless to get La Roche-Guyon out, but no doubt he is enjoying himself. I do not think his brother would be quite so much at home."

"Why?" asked Horatia with interest. "What is his brother like? Is he very different?"

"Quite," responded Tristram laconically, sitting down beside her.

"He is older, is he not?"

"Yes, by nearly twenty years, I should think."

"I can't imagine this M. de la Roche-Guyon twenty years older."

"You need not try. They are not in the least replicas of each other. Emmanuel de la Roche-Guyon was never like his brother, of that I am sure."

"It is sad for him to be practically an exile," observed Horatia.

Tristram merely looked at her, then at the laughing group in the middle of the room, and raised his eyebrows. Horatia smiled in spite of herself.

"I see what you mean. Well, I will bestow my sympathy better. It is sad for the Duke to be in exile at Lulworth, with Charles X."

Tristram lowered his voice. "My dear Horatia, there are compensations even in banishment. Imagine living under the same roof with all the relatives you ever had – with, say, your great-grandmother, your grandmother, all your great-aunts, your brothers, your nephews.... That is what the French generally mean by family life – a kind of hotel, with the additional drawback of knowing intimately all the other occupants. They have not our idea of the home that grows up round two people."

Once again Horatia was conscious of that new quality in Tristram's voice, once again she could disregard it, for before she had time to make a reply of any sort she perceived that the Comte de la Roche-Guyon was free, and was coming towards them.

"Ah, here you are!" said Tristram, getting up. "Take my place, and talk to Miss Grenville for a little." Going off, he crossed the room to speak to a neglected spinster in a corner.

M. de la Roche-Guyon sat down in his vacated place without more ado. He gave one glance round the room, and said, "Si nous causions un peu en français?"

His eyes, as dancing and daring as they had been sad yesterday, challenged her to more than conversation in a foreign tongue. And something in Horatia's soul responded.

"Volontiers, Monsieur. What shall we talk about?"

The young man drew his chair a thought nearer. Conversation was rippling all around them; they were isolated in a sea of chatter.

"I will tell you a secret," he said. "I can tell you in French, but you must promise me to forget it in English."

"Very well, I promise."

"You remember, Mademoiselle, that we were late yesterday, M. votre père and I, because M. Hungerford's horse cast a shoe as we came back."

Horatia nodded.

"And how you blamed the groom of M. Hungerford or the blacksmith? Eh bien, I alone was to blame!"

Miss Grenville opened astonished eyes. "I do not understand you, Monsieur. You did not shoe the horse; and you did not make the shoe come off on purpose."

"Mais si, si, si!" reiterated the young Frenchman, his eyes sparkling. " Peccavi nimis, cogitatione, verbo, et opere . I loosened the nails before I left the hillside!"