"Well, Adèle was wooed and won by a very lofty personage, who, if not of the parent imperial rose-tree, could claim close connection with it. Like her mother again, the marriage was a secret one, though in accordance with the ritual of the Catholic Church, to which faith the girl belonged. I believe the months that followed were the happiest the girl had ever known in her not too happy life. It made the awakening all the more terrible; for of course there was an awakening. Men have a habit of tiring of their most beautiful human toys, especially if these playthings develop intellect and passion.
"Let me draw a veil over this part of Mdlle. Lamien's history. It is enough to say that a terrible crime was committed—a crime so violent and so fatal that all Petersburg were roused to action, and the imperial blood-hounds let loose to track the perpetrator. It was at this time that Adèle fled from Russia, and reached England almost by miracle. From there she hastened to America, haven of all persecuted unfortunates; and in New York she came under my notice. I listened to her story, and, after she had finished its narration, and knowing all against her, and nothing in her favour, I took her as governess for my little daughter. Quixotic! Yes, I know it was, and a dangerous experiment; but I couldn't help it—there were reasons—her eyes haunted me. And truth compels me to state that so far she has proved herself fully worthy of my trust. Marianne is devoted to her—she is little short of angelic in the child's eyes; and I openly confess to a tender regard for her. She is unexplainable, enigmatic, fascinating. But, hush, here comes the child; and her ears are something abnormal."
Esther finished with a dramatic little gesture that set them all laughing, and in the general merriment Philip's gravity passed unchallenged.
The story, as told by Mrs. Newbold, with all her little artistic touches of gesture and inflection, haunted him strangely. He found himself constantly reverting to it, and always with an incongruous and almost jarring thought of Patty, running side by side with his unwilling sympathy for Mdlle. Lamien.
Miss James found him a very inattentive listener as, later in the evening, they sat together on the wide verandah, and looked across the broad stretch of lawn to where the faintest streak of shining grey marked the waters of the bay. The moonlight was flooding all things with reckless prodigality, until even the barest and tiniest twig grew luminous, and the budding roses became ethereal in the generosity of its rays.
Miss James would have dearly loved to sentimentalise a little; she was not at all adverse to a mild flirtation with this handsome grave man, whose very presence made her feel her own littleness of mental stature. Unconsciously she dropped her usual heroics, and was prepared to be as meek and coy as any new-fledged débutante. Unfortunately however, Philip's mind was not in tune, or she struck the wrong chords, for he failed miserably to be responsive. At length, after a rather awkward little silence, she requested him, a trifle sharply, to fetch her a shawl; she felt the evening growing chilly.
Almost too eagerly Philip sprang up and hastened to obey her, leaving her with tears of mortification in her eyes, and hot anger in her heart. Meantime, Mr. Tremain, quite oblivious to his shortcomings, made his way to the inner hall, where he had an indistinct remembrance of having seen something white and fluffy, and which bore about it a faint odour of white rose, Miss James's most affected scent. Surely, unless he was too awfully masculine, that soft white odorous mass was of the nature of a wrap.
As he crossed the entrance-hall on his quest, he caught sight of Mdlle. Lamien's tall figure in the little drawing-room which was especially consecrated to Marianne. She was standing by the window, her face pressed against the frame, her whole form shaken with suppressed emotion. Tremain, like most men, was acutely susceptible to tears. He stopped involuntarily, hesitated, and in another moment was at her side.
"Mdlle. Lamien," he said, gently, "are you in trouble? Can I help you?"
She made him no answer, save by a quick, impatient movement of her head.