Armand laughed. "I cannot deny that. Now that there is no monarch the great Renæ is more of a monarchist than ever. Very well, little tease, I will get you the entrée to the Abbaye-aux-Bois as soon as I can."
And with that promise—as yet unfulfilled, Horatia was forced to be content....
Her eyes went back to her book.
"O temps, suspends ton vol——"
But the thoughts came bubbling up, displacing the flow of the verses. She did not want the flight of time suspended this afternoon; rather the contrary. Armand was away, and would not be back till to-morrow; the flight of time was a mere crawl.
"Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices..."
But this was no fleet delight, to sit here in her boudoir, full of flowers though it was, with nothing to do, and the rain falling outside. Besides, if she went out, it must be with the Marquise.
The last time they had driven out together, Madame de Beaulieu had taken her to see the villa outside Paris which she was furnishing for a summer retreat—the latest craze. This was no ancestral château, and everything in it must be new, and, said the Marquise, marked by extreme simplicity of taste. And in the drawing-room, where the blinds were painted to resemble stained-glass windows, where the chairs, stools and sofas were of bamboo and Persian-figured chintz, the ottomans and floorcloths of split reeds, Madame de Beaulieu described the style of dress which she had designed for herself when inhabiting this seclusion—a plain white jacconet gown, with an apron of dove-coloured gros de Naples, worked round with green foliage, the pockets cut en coeur, the hair to be done smoothly with but one high bow and a comb, and no ornaments whatsoever.
It was after this expedition that Horatia had suddenly taken the resolution of unpacking her books. She felt haunted by the dove-coloured apron with green foliage and heart-shaped pockets, and with Martha's assistance she brought the prisoners once more to the light of day. Some had been among her childhood's treasures—Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, a few sheets of the Arabian Nights, The Scottish Chiefs, Susan Gray—and then there were all the favourites of later years. She welcomed them with an almost guilty pleasure, and there they were now, most of them in a bookcase under the window looking out into the Rue Saint-Dominique, for under the other, which gave on to the courtyard of the Hôtel, stood the Duchesse's New Year's gift to her—a satinwood table inlaid with ebony, encumbered on every side with drawers from which hung workbags of blue satin, stocked with the requirements for a hundred and one useless handicrafts—with velvet to make flowers, and gauze for painting upon. Horatia had just opened these pouched drawers, no more, and at present used the table rather ruthlessly for a sort of jardinière, so that the inlay was slowly deteriorating under pots of camellias and baskets of violets in moss.
She took up the other volume of Lamartine. Between the pages she had put an old letter of her father's to mark the place, and idly she unfolded this and read it again. The Rector spoke of many things; among others of Tristram's tour in Italy with his friend; they were reported to be enjoying themselves and Mr. Dormer's health was improving slowly. A passage she had forgotten struck her again.