"Of course you will go with us," he had cried, beaming with joy and tossing Papillon nearly to the ceiling as some outlet for his feelings, "and it will be glorious; and think of the ecstasy of my old people and the rest!"
"Remember, Victor—they are simple people," Félicité had ventured, but he had laughed again.
"And so is she! They are peasants, and she is a great lady. Ça se comprend. But extremes meet, and Brigit has none of the British middle-class snobbism. It is well that she should see the people from whom we come. She shall go with us."
And she had come.
Things had gone very well of late, and as she lay on her narrow bed resting and waiting for Théo to fetch her, she reviewed the events that had occurred since her great quarrel with Victor, and drew a deep breath of satisfaction at the state of affairs.
She and Joyselle, both of them remembering the horror of the quarrel, had been exceptionally gentle to each other, and as so often happens when a situation is apparently unbearable, it had suddenly become quite smooth and pleasant. Restraining himself from demonstrativeness, Joyselle had been able to keep his emotions well in hand, and the tacit avoidance of têtes-à-tête had also proved most helpful.
Félicité's innocent interpretation of their feelings had gone far, too, towards quieting those feelings almost to her conception of them. There were times, Brigit had seen, not without amusement, when Victor had nearly felt for her the paternal solicitude his wife believed him to feel, and even though she smiled at this susceptibility to impression in him, the girl more than once caught herself semi-unconsciously playing the rôle of youthful hero-worshipper cast for her by the older woman.
The position should have been untenable, but it was not. As yet no remorse had come to Brigit regarding Félicité, although she frequently experienced a pang of self-loathing on meeting Théo's honest and trusting eyes. Her upbringing had been such that she really believed herself to be as yet quite guiltless of anything more than an almost inevitable deceit, and even when she did regret the deceit, the thought that she was going to marry Théo gave her instant comfort, as though she were contemplating some noble act of atonement.
"Victor is very good now," she thought, turning her flat, hard pillow, "and I am much less nervous and irritable. Things always do straighten themselves out, I suppose—for those who know how to wait. Mere waiting does no good, it's the knowing how that counts. And I think we are learning now. If only Théo would fall in love with someone else. The minute he becomes unhappy or even impatient Victor will grow paternal, and that is horrible. Théo seems happy enough now——"
Her room was small and high, with orange-coloured stencillings on a grey ground, and thin, dangerously movable strips of carpet on the slippery floor. The curtains were of blue flannel and thoroughly unbeautiful.