It was late when the party returned and assembled for a supper of consommé, chicken salad and a cream for which Albertine, saturnine yet complacent, was warmly praised. Alix looked drugged with happiness and fatigue and madame Vervier soon sent her to bed. Mademoiselle Blanche Fontaine, in the drawing-room with madame Vervier and monsieur de Maubert, read aloud the manuscript of a new play; the young artist went away to his hotel on the place, and monsieur de Valenbois sat for a little while with Giles on the steps of the verandah to look at the fading dyes of the sunset and to talk of Scriabin, Stravinsky, and the Russian ballet. Giles had to own that he did not care much about the Russian ballet. He was always having to own things to monsieur de Valenbois who showed the happiest interest in his lapses, giving utterance, now and then, to a gentle long-drawn “Tiens!” Giles himself was very tired, however, and felt that he could not adequately defend his theories which rested upon an objection to the use of the body as a means of primitive expressionism. He soon said good-night and went up to his wonderful little room.
After he had gone to bed he lay for a long time awake, a fold of the coarse cool linen that smelt of orris root against his cheek. He heard mademoiselle Fontaine go away to her own villa, escorted by the other three. Then, when they returned, the Sacre du Printemps came softly humming up the stairs, showing him that monsieur de Valenbois was also going to bed. After that the only voices left below were those of monsieur de Maubert and his hostess, sitting in quiet converse on the verandah.
They talked meditatively with pauses of appreciation for the beauty of the night, and madame Vervier must once have risen to advance and look out into the starry vastness, for Giles heard her say “Tiens;—qu’elle est grande, notre étoile, ce soir!”
It was late before the final words were vaguely wafted up to him: “Bonsoir, mon ami.” “Bonne nuit, ma chère Hélène.”
CHAPTER V
He had not imagined madame Vervier coming down to breakfast; but she was up long before it. Giles, looking from his window at seven, was astonished to see her form, wrapped in a white bath-robe, advancing leisurely from the cliff that she had, evidently, just ascended after a morning swim. She was alone. It was so early that she had awakened no one to share with her the delicate sting of the morning waves. Giles indeed imagined, watching her, that these early hours were set apart by her for solitude; that no one ever shared them with her. She walked, her russet head bent down, a little as she had walked in the Bois; meditating, it seemed. He heard her afterwards on the verandah, in the salon below, moving quietly to and fro. Her calm voice directed Albertine. “Ne réveillez pas mademoiselle. Elle est si fatiguée,” he heard.
A little while later, Albertine’s voice broke out far away, at the garden gate, in vehement yet not unfriendly altercation with the baker’s lady; and then, stealing deliciously into his sleepy senses, mingling with the fragrance of the carnations by his bedside, the aroma of roasting coffee-beans delicately tinctured the air. Albertine came in with a jug of steaming water and it was time to get up.
When he went down at half-past eight, monsieur de Valenbois was singing in the drawing-room with madame Vervier at the piano; the song was “D’Une Prison,” and he sang well.
Albertine was laying breakfast on the verandah, and Giles stood leaning against a pillar listening to the song. At its end madame Vervier soberly commended the singer, yet turned a leaf, here and there, to suggest an alteration. “Qu’as-tu fait de ta jeunesse?” monsieur de Valenbois sang again, with a new poignancy; and yet again. “Bien; très bien,” said madame Vervier’s quiet voice.
Then monsieur de Maubert appeared, and they came out to greet him and Giles. Monsieur de Maubert wore a small white woollen shawl over his shoulders and madame Vervier asked him with solicitude whether he would rather have breakfasted in the salle-à-manger, as usual. It had seemed so deliciously mild a morning that she had told Albertine to lay the table here.