Ned, serenely undisturbed by, if not unconscious of, a certain toneless hauteur, greeted Mademoiselle Lambertine with his usual politeness. He was not, in truth, greatly interested in this fine animal. He recognised in her no original quality that set her apart from her fellows. Beauty of an astonishing order was hers indeed—beauty as much of promise as of fulfilment. The little remaining gaucherie of the hoyden dwelt with her only like a lingering brogue on the tongue of an expatriated Irishman. It was rough-and-tumble budding into a manner of caress. But beauty, save as it might contribute to the motif of a picture, was no fire to raise this young man’s temperature, and in Théroigne’s presence he seemed only to breathe an opulent atmosphere of commonplace. She was glowing passion interpreted through colour—siennas and leafy browns, and golds like the reflection of sunsets; a dryad, a pagan, a liberal-limbed tetonnière. If she were ever to find herself a soul, he could imagine her standing out richly as a Rembrandt portrait against torn dark backgrounds. But at present she seemed to lack the setting that occasion might procure her.
“Why do you toil this long way for water?” said he.
“For the reason that monsieur travels,” she answered coldly.
“Do I comprehend? I loiter up the channels of life seeking the spring-heads.”
“Whence the waters gush sweet and clear. Down in the dull homesteads one draws only stagnation from the ground.”
“Or from the barrels underground. Méricourt would do well, I think, to make this fountain its rendezvous.”
“Oh, monsieur! one need not drink much wine, I see, to yield oneself to insolence.”
“Well, you are angry over that kiss. But it was a jest, Théroigne. My heart was as cold as this basin.”
Did this improve matters?
“No doubt,” she said, flushing up, “you only lack the opportunity to be a Judas. And is it so they treat women in your barbarous island?”