Shakespeare.
Now let us take the roof off, as is done in fairy stories about other charms.
Let us steal a peep, that is, inside various rooms of that hotel, where this story is laid.
In the basement, first of all, let us cast a glance at the appartement that had echoed to the feasting of that luncheon party, and had been later the scene of a sedate and ultra-English tea. Nobody there now, except the hotel manageress and her husband. Monsieur Leroux with that black domino beard of his, is dozing in the most capacious chair; Madame is poring over her accounts. Every now and then her eye lights up with a spark from the smouldering fire of pride within her; for who but she has such a right of feeling proud at the end of that day of meals and acclamations (and washing-up?). She thinks of her nephew Gustave's brilliant partie, and of the bedazzling of all her friends, most especially of the notary's wife, here in this very room. The little close room seems to her once more a-glitter with the glass and the silver and the display.... Only the prune-coloured velvet curtains are tightly drawn before the pots of imitation cyclamen, and there enters no gleam of the light that is bathing the forest and the sea without—light of the waning moon, melting and cool at once, at once disdainful and seductive.
Upstairs in the salle à manger the engaged couple have been dining as guests of the guests. Mrs. Cartwright and the Professor had suggested this, and their proposal was cordially received. The health of the fiancés had been drunk, and the old French gentleman with the red button-hole has added the toast to the next betrothed from that party there present tonight.
And now Gustave Tronchet and his bride-elect are still moving from group to group in the salon, and the diffident, old-maidish Englishwoman is transfigured. It astonishes her to think that she could ever have felt that violent shyness so early in the day. She has forgotten how her knees trembled as she faced that perfect zoo of foreigners, all beards and bosoms, come to inspect Mees Ouallshe.
She feels now that she carried it off admirably. She has been amplifying to herself since the ten words of French that she had managed to stammer out then, and by now they appear to her a classic oration. She feels she was born to this kind of thing. On her fiancé's stout arm she moves about the room like a spoon that is keeping on the stir a pan of hot and incredibly sweet social jam. As Mrs. Cartwright says to herself, "No ordinary English engagement to a man out of her own world could ever have brought the dear good creature these triumphs; let her enjoy them,"——and everybody enjoys seeing Miss Agatha Walsh radiant, while she even more enjoys being so seen.
As for Sergeant Gustave Tronchet, if he were not enjoying it, also, who should be? Accepted, rangé, adored!
He marshals her about from salle to salon and lounge, drawing her back as she peeps through the chink of the big hall door at the beckoning moonlight without.