"My dear, surely there are no Charles de Montalemberts at Oxford—of all places! Besides, why should there be?"
Horatia could not say, but the question had so vividly called up another Charles—and his friend—that for a moment she hardly heard Lady Granville discussing the prospects of the Reform Bill.
When she took her leave, pressed by the Ambassadress to come soon on one of her Mondays—her Fridays were so crowded—she drove home in the highest spirits, feeling that she had really made a friend, and a most delightful friend.
CHAPTER VII
(1)
Horatia drove with the Marquise next afternoon. The Champs Elysées were very gay, and her spirits always went up when the sun shone. There was the indefinable romance of spring, the eternal romance of Paris—and Armand was coming back to-night. She was inclined to wonder at her restlessness of yesterday.
"Dear me," observed Madame de Beaulieu suddenly, "I smell essence de mousseline. When have you been to Houbigant's?" And without waiting for an answer she went on, "You are improving, ma chère. As a rule you English have organs for which no odour is too strong, and no colour is too striking. Lavender is the basis of all your perfumes, and the rainbow of all your colours."
As she spoke a very pretty woman, elaborately dressed in violet drap d'Algers and swansdown, and extravagantly painted, passed them for the third or fourth time in her carriage. She was alone, and was driving very slowly; many glances, of which she seemed pleasurably conscious, were cast at her from other carriages and by the male loungers under the trees. Chiefly to avoid the subject of Houbigant's, Horatia asked who she was.
The Marquise put up her lorgnettes. "That?" she said carelessly—"oh, Mademoiselle Blanchette Delmar of the Opera of course. Yes, she is pretty, isn't she? Armand thought so once, too, but they apparently got tired of each other very soon. I forget who is the favoured swain at present."
A curious sick coldness came over Horatia; yet the red mounted to her cheeks. The Marquise observed it.