"On trouva dans l'enceinte où le temple s'élève
Sur l'autel une lyre ... et près du seuil un glaive."
"Is it not touching!" said the purple lady to Horatia. The green plumes in her headdress quivered, and she dabbed her eyes rather ostentatiously. "Ces pauvres gens.... Ah, she is beginning again!"
This time it was a Hymn to Ste Généviève.
"Patronne de France, amour de nos aieux ..."
At the conclusion of this poem, amid the hum of applause, Madame Gay was observed to approach her offspring, and to whisper something into her ear. The poetess shook her head; then, seeming to relent, and smiling, she announced
"Le bonheur d'être belle. Dedicated to Madame
Récamier."
"Quel bonheur d'être belle, alors qu'on est aimée!
Autrefois de mes yeux je n'étais pas charmée;
Je les croyais sans feu, sans douceur, sans regard;
Je me trouvais jolie un moment par hasard.
Maintenant ma beauté me parait admirable.
Je m'aime de lui plaire, et je me crois aimable....
Il le dit si souvent! Je l'aime, et quand je vois
Ses yeux avec plaisir se reposer sur moi,
Au sentiment d'orgueil je ne suis point rebelle,
Je bénis mes parents de m'avoir fait si belle.
Mais ... pourquoi dans mon coeur ces subites alarmes?—
Si notre amour tous deux nous trompait sur mes charmes:
Si j'étais laide enfin? Non ... il s'y connaît mieux!
D'ailleurs pour m'admirer je ne veux que ses yeux!—
Bientôt il va venir! bientôt il va me voir!
Comme, en me regardant, il sera beau ce soir!
Le voilà! je l'entends, c'est sa voix amoureuse!
Quel bonheur d'être belle! Oh, que je suis heureuse!"
The extraordinary appropriateness of these verses to Horatia's own attitude of mind during the past months made her forget to join in the applause which followed their recitation. Yes, it had been exactly her own case; she knew it, and Armand knew it too. He would tease her about them going home. She looked round, with a little half-shy smile, for her husband, but he was nowhere to be seen, and she remembered that since Mademoiselle Gay's entrance she had been too much occupied to notice his whereabouts.
And then came his voice in her ear, sudden and by no means "amoureuse."
"For God's sake let us go!"
Horatia turned round, startled. "Certainly, if you wish it," she responded, and, the recitation having apparently come to an end, she was able to take her leave almost at once. Her first thought had been that Armand was ill.