She was still gazing, with a dream in her half-smiling eyes, when Martha came to dress her.
CHAPTER VIII
(1)
Circumstances were beginning to prove, as usual, too strong for Armand de la Roche-Guyon. For all his self-will he was generally at the mercy of his surroundings; too light a bark to struggle with the stream, too buoyant to be wholly swamped by it. In England Horatia had been his circumstances; before her, Laurence de Vigerie; before her, not a few other ladies; and now Paris, his friends, his family had enveloped him again. For it was quite true, as the Duchesse had hinted, that his friends were beginning to tease him about his devotion to his wife, while on the other hand he suspected that his wife would soon come to consider him not devoted enough. This morning's little scene was all very well in its way, but a melancholy prescience whispered to him that the day might dawn when he would find it a bore to keep on assuring Horatia that he loved her. There was no excitement now in the situation, and she was so entirely a captive that he felt his own chains. A certain standard of behaviour was evidently going to be demanded of him, whereas what he craved for was not obligations but diversion. And that the two things he most held in horror, the possibilities of becoming ridiculous and of being made uncomfortable, should descend upon him at once, from different quarters, was rather damnable.
He was in this mood when he crossed the Pont Royal that afternoon, turned to the left and began to walk beside the wall of the Tuileries garden. It was two o'clock, the fashionable hour for promenaders within, but Armand chose the comparative peace of the quay. The sun shone; a little breeze blew off the Seine, and he walked along frowning, no less handsome and attractive for his ill-temper, while two soubrettes, linked arm in arm, turned to look after him speculating on its cause.
Diversion, excitement, a stimulating uncertainty as to his reception—all these had been his at the hands of Madame de Vigerie. Armand had long admired this young, fashionable, and widowed lady, had paid her marked court, and had arrived last summer at the conclusion that, if she would have him—which was by no means certain—he could not do better than to marry her. Then had come his visit to England, and the intrusion of a sudden, genuine passion. But his intention had nevertheless held till the night of that ball in Berkshire. Afterwards he had lain awake till morning fighting the new emotion with the remembrance of the old, then, with a characteristic mixture of coolness and impetuosity, had decided that the new was better. Probably it was, yet he wished that he were at this moment on his way to the familiar drawing room in the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, if only to have his present irritation put to flight.
So he walked, swinging his gold and tortoiseshell cane, and behind him, in an open carriage, a lady in lie-de-vin and ermine was overtaking him. With her furs she had a little parasol against the April sun; a boa was wound twice round her neck. She was not pretty, but she was supremely elegant. Leaning forward, she spoke to her coachman; the pace of her horses was moderated, and thus, while still overtaking him, she was able to contemplate at her leisure the figure of the young man to which she drew near. And she did so with a smile on her lips, and her head a little on one side.
Abreast of Armand she called out softly,
"Monsieur de la Roche-Guyon!" and the carriage drew up.
Armand turned. It is always startling when the subject of one's meditations suddenly appears before one, and the slowness with which his hand went to his hat was sufficient proof of the degree to which he was amazed.